Are ministers breaking the promise made by Transport Minister Lord MacDonald that prime countryside would be spared new roads unless there were exceptional circumstances? That is the allegation being made by environmentalists.
The figures so far are certainly open to question. Of the 47 local council roads provisionally accepted by the government, several are in some of the most valued countryside in the UK. A further road 72 schemes are still being analysed, and only one road has been rejected (not on environmental grounds). Scores more national road schemes could be approved within the year.
In theory councils have to justify every road in an impartial appraisal of its full environmental and economic impacts. But as the appraisals are being carried out by the councils who are promoting the road schemes, they are sometimes less than impartial
WEYMOUTH
Dorset County Council, for instance, is promoting a bypass north of Weymouth.
It cuts five miles through the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)on the Dorset Ridgeway which commands spectacular views along the coast.
Dorset’s submission says Weymouth is in need of major regeneration, with 4,500 jobs lost from the Ministry of Defence. But Today has learned that when the submission was made, Weymouth had a jobless total BELOW the national average - and that all the lost MoD jobs had been substituted by the booming local economy.
The council say the public transport options locally would be as damaging as the road scheme but this is hard to understand, as the public transport option entails a park-and-ride site at Upwey station, whereas the road package also includes a park-and-rise site as well as 5-mile bypass through the AONB.
CARLISLE
In Carlisle * AUDIO a battle is being waged over provisional government approval for a new road which will cut across the Hadrian’s Wall world heritage site and an internationally-designated Special Area of Conservation where otters breed.
Cumbria Council say the road is vital to unlock land for an industrial estate and provide opportunity for the depressed towns of Workington and Whitehaven on the west coast. But Today has learned that civil servants have warned that the road might actually suck jobs out of West Cumbria by luring firms to relocate on the new industrial estate.
What is more, access to the industrial site could be gained by constructing a cheap one-mile link road from the industrial estate to a junction of the M6 without affecting the sensitive sites. The council say this does not relieve congestion in Carlisle.
HASTINGS
In Hastings (a national road scheme) the South East Regional Assembly looks likely to approve a bypass through prime countryside which is protected by both an AONB and Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The exceptional case made for Hastings is that it is the poorest town in the region with pockets of severe deprivation. An independent consultants’ report for the government said a new industrial estate unlocked by the bypass is on balance the best transport option for regeneration (the consultants were prevented from examining whether non-transport investment might achieve the same end with less cost and less environmental damage.)
But an appendix reveals that the road might have perverse effects. The scheme would create up to 3,000 jobs - but many (or perhaps even all) of those could be snapped up by people moving into new housing planned by the bypass, and the industrial estate was likely to suck 300 jobs from the deprived areas where they are most needed.
Lord MacDonald will have the final say on the decision.
The local government minister Keith Hill said that the government had not abandoned its environmental strategy - and that council were now presenting fewer damaging road schemes.
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