10.01.06: TSLM say Link road planners must learn from the Newbury Bypass failure.
Ten years after the start of work on the infamous Newbury bypass, traffic is up by around 50% and it's gridlock as usual. The government's predicted traffic levels have proved to be hopelessly inaccurate: by 2003 the traffic predictions for 2010 had been massively exceeded. Since the opening of the Bypass, the Newbury traffic growth has been a staggering 50%: national growth in the same period was only 5%. These damning figures have been uncovered by Roadblock, a national alliance against road building.
“This Newbury Bypass report comes at a crucial moment as people in our district prepare their objections to the Heysham M6 Link. Newbury shows yet again that new roads only increase traffic” says David Gate, Chair of Transport Solutions for Lancaster and Morecambe, the independent group who favour non damaging solutions to the traffic problem. “Here in our district 173 acres of our precious countryside, most of it Green Belt, will be destroyed to build a road which will only expose the district to more traffic. It is becoming more and more difficult for Lancashire County Council to justify their actions. They have even had to admit that the Heysham M6 Link is not a relief road.”
“All the County Council want to do is push to build a road, any old road will do, after the failure of their preferred plan the Western route. We say that there are many alternative measures which should be implemented before they even think about blowing upwards of £118 million on this unpopular and destructive project. When the money and the countryside are gone we will still be stuck in traffic.”
“Right now many concerned people are writing to the County Council to object, and we encourage them to do so. But the County Council are set to rule on their own application. So our best hope is to write also to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, and ask him to "call in" the controversial scheme for consideration by an independent inspector at a public inquiry.”