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.