Easy peasy

The junior engineers of WSP, the global transport consultants, doing the bidding of the East Sussex road lobby and their chums in the construction industry. Put some dots on a map, to destroy large and invaluable parts of a National Park, and take out houses in Southerham, Beddingham and Glynde. Their dots, overlaid on Google satellite image. 

Codswallop

We've been after Highways England for information about its evaluation of schemes to drive a new dual carriageway between Lewes and Polegate since August 2018. We've now got some transparency, and a report, by consultants WSP, that is high-level codswallop.

It suggests a new road of up to 16km between Southerham and Copthall, with between 8 and 12 major over-bridges, at a cost of up to £530m could be open by 2030, and save just over 9 minutes per journey by 2045. Attached to this is an utterly bogus Benefit Cost Ratio of between 2.2 to 2.5. It claims it is evident there will be no more investment in rail and bus services.

Here's a paragraph typical of the consultant' balderdash that peppers the 68 pages. Do you think we'll ever see this qualitative assessment and get the name of the people that wrote it ?

"A qualitative assessment of the anticipated environmental impacts of the A27 east of Lewes off-line scheme interventions was undertaken and concluded that there would likely be a large adverse impact on landscape for all interventions, and moderate adverse impacts on noise, historic environment and biodiversity."

And below are the routes they have been considering.

Learning time

It was an entertaining performance by new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, at the despatch box for his first Budget. But for environmentalists, there was relish in this paragraph which rings real alarm bells. 

"Today, I’m announcing the biggest ever investment in strategic roads and motorway – over £27bn of tarmac. That will pay for work on over 20 connections to ports and airports, over 100 junctions, 4,000 miles of road."

Tarmac, is, of course a trademark, so let's consider the impact of this amount of asphalt/bitumen/tarmac style construction.  13,000 hectares of the stuff adds to water run-off, in a country slowly sinking under water we can't clear quickly enough to sop flooding. Alongside that water we get the particulate run-off created by tyres acting on the surface (both elements add to that pollution), plus oil, petrol, cadmium, zinc, rust and copper. The creation of asphalt creates particulate pollution. 

In 2017, the Office for National Statistics reported that greenhouse gas emissions from the UK road transport sector counted for one fifth of our UK total. Looking at major roads, the total of dual carriageway and motorway miles in the UK is 31,800 - Mr Sunak and Mr Shapps are looking at a 12% increase.  New roads induce more traffic, travelling at higher, more polluting speeds. 

The re-education of Messrs Sunak and Shapps on the issues facing our environment is a priority for 2020. 

The struggle continues

Our local MPs Maria Caulfield, for Lewes, and Caroline Ansell, for Eastbourne, have kept the prosect of a new road between Lewes and Polegate alive, if on life support, with the support of Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

"A27 Lewes to Polegate" is listed as in the 'pipeline' for the third tranche of strategic network roadbuilding, called RIS3, which should run from 2025 to 2030. These are proposals that "Highways England will develop during up to 2025, so that they could enter construction in RP3. Funding for construction of these schemes has not been committed."

"The development process is not a commitment to construct particular projects. Many proposals are likely to gather views from stakeholders and local people who might be affected by a potential proposal, including through a non-statutory consultation. For front-runners, this process could include
taking a proposal to a full planning inquiry before the publication of the next RIS."

Our MPs, Mr Shapps, and Highways England can be certain that any plan for a new road will be fought with logic, determination and vigour.