Confidential

After three months and three Freedom of Information requests, Highways UK have released the slide below to me.

This is all, in terms of route appraisal, that's required to convince the A27 Reference Group and the Government that a new dual carriageway between Lewes and Polegate is, suddenly, value for money and of economic benefit, at £450m, when all previous reports have shown otherwise. Highways UK, for all their £3m consultancy costs, seem unaware that there's a second Arlington Reservoir coming; presumably they can afford a bridge or something. You wouldn't put it past them to assume a new speed limit to speed up the journey times.

People who've lived here longer than me can tell you what all three corridors might do to the bio-diversity of the area, but that doesn't seem to come into the calculations of Reference Group chair Maria Caulfield MP. She's heading for an entertaining series of meetings around the parishes, where residents can explain to her the concept of planning blight....