Transport Environment Politics

South Coast Against Roadbuilding (SCAR)

Press Release

For Immediate Release

NEW REPORT CONFIRMS ROADBUILDING CREATES MASSIVE TRAFFIC GROWTH

A27 AND A24 SCHEMES MUST BE SCRAPPED

ROADBUILDING often leads to much faster traffic growth than forecast, according to a new study commissioned by CPRE [1] and the Countryside Agency. [2] The report specifically highlights how the infamous Newbury Bypass failed, by generating massive traffic growth in the area. SCAR [9] welcomes the CPRE report, and believes it undermines the case for the serial A27 road scheme at Arundel, Chichester and Worthing, together with the A24 from Worthing to the M25, all being proposed by West Sussex County Council. SCAR says that lessons must be learnt from failed road schemes, with the A27 and A24 schemes all being scrapped and the taxpayer saved from this massive waste of money.

Researchers studied three controversial major schemes of recent years - the A34 Newbury Bypass in Berkshire , the A27 Polegate Bypass near Eastbourne , East Sussex , and the M65 Blackburn Southern Bypass in Lancashire .

They found traffic on these roads had already reached or exceeded the levels forecast for the year 2010. [3] And extra traffic - over and above the gradual increase happening everywhere - had flowed onto local roads as a result of the schemes, undermining the claim that the bypasses would reduce congestion. SCAR has campaigned against the A27 superhighway since the early 90's and the A24 since plans were announced, fearing that all the schemes would only bring short term relief.

The CPRE study [4] is one of the first to look at what actually happens once roads have been built. For all three schemes, there was above average traffic growth, increased development pressures on undeveloped land nearby and significant damage to landscapes (see case studies at the end of this email).

Yet these important issues are not being picked up by the Highways Agency's own post-construction analysis for new road schemes. The study concludes that the Government is failing to learn the lessons which could lead to better transport policies and decisions.

The researchers looked at what was claimed for the road schemes at the planning and justification stage and what actually happened once they were built - in terms of traffic flows, landscape and noise impacts and new development nearby.

At Newbury and Polegate the new bypasses did reduce town centre traffic. But the reductions were not as much as originally forecast, whilst traffic has increased on the bypassed roads and on the new bypasses.

Town centre shops in Polegate suffering from losses in trade have been campaigning for signs to be installed on the bypass directing traffic back into town!

Yet the study concludes, from Highways Agency traffic data, that the effect of the new Polegate bypass has been to generate 27 per cent additional traffic in the area one year after it opened. [5]

Newbury has also seen rapid traffic growth, with most of the freed-up space on the old, by-passed road being taken by new traffic attracted by new development. This echoes the conclusions of a WS Atkins report in 2005 for West Berkshire Council that traffic had increased on the roads around Newbury by 48% in just four years whilst over the same period nationally traffic had grown by only about 5% [6].

The researchers found the three schemes caused serious and permanent damage to rural landscapes, including an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. [7]

The money spent on evaluating road schemes is only 0.1 per cent of the money spent on building them, and many of the evaluations carried out have yet to be published. [8]

SCAR believes that if built all the A27 and A24 road schemes would generate more traffic than is currently predicted, will devastate protected landscapes including the South Downs and will be a waste of taxpayers money. SCAR believes these schemes should be scrapped and sustainable transport measures to reduce traffic growth and give greater travel choice be implemented instead.

Said Ian Brookes of SCAR: "We welcome this important CPRE and Countryside Agency report, and believe it undermines the case for all the A27 and A24 road schemes. In our evidence at public inquiry's we have always maintained that road building creates more traffic and climate change gases, and damages the wider environment. We must learn from past mistakes, starting with scrapping the unnecessary and damaging A27 and A24 road schemes".

Among the reports recommendations are:

· post-construction evaluation schemes for roads to have a stronger influence on transport policy and road investment decisions, by being published promptly, widely disseminated and discussed and clearly responded to;

· more weight given to landscape and environmental impacts in the decision-making process for road schemes;

· a major, strategic Government study of the extra traffic resulting from all road schemes completed in the past decade and the resulting environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions;

· alternative approaches to be seriously investigated before new roads are built, such as improvements to public transport and facilities for walking and cycling;

· stricter rules governing bypasses to prevent infill development (between the bypass and the urban edge), new car-dependent development on Greenfield's and increased car use.

- END -

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England - http://www.cpre.org.uk/

2. The Countryside Agency is the statutory body working to make the quality of life better for people in the countryside and the quality of the countryside better for everyone. It is a non-departmental body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). See http://www.countryside.gov.uk/

3. The Highways Agency forecast for the A34 Newbury Bypass, completed in 1998, was 30,000 to 36,000 vehicles per day (averaged throughout the year) by 2010. The actual level measured in 2004 was 43,800. Meanwhile peak-time congestion within the town is back to original levels. For the M65 Blackburn Southern Bypass, opened in 1997, the Department of Transport forecast 41,000 to 51,000 vehicles per day in 2010. The actual traffic level in 2004 was 52,452. As for the A27 Polegate Bypass, the average annual weekday traffic soon after the opening in 2002 was 23,500 per day but by April 2005 it had risen to 30,157 - a 27% increase, equivalent to 9% annual growth. The projection for 2010 for this bypass was that there would be 32,100 vehicles per day in 2010, but this was based on the assumption that another section of new road linked to the bypass would be open by then (which, in itself, would have added further traffic). In fact, in April 2005 there were 30,157 vehicles per day - so traffic is now approaching the forecast 2010 level, even without this section of adjoining road.

4. Beyond Transport Infrastructure by Lilli Matson, Ian Taylor, Lynn Sloman and John Elliott, published by CPRE and the Countryside Agency (CA). A summary report is available from CPRE's press office and the Countryside Agency's. A copy of the Executive Summary is available on request. The full report is being posted on CPRE's website, www.cpre.org.uk/publications/index.htm , and on the CA's website at www.countryside.gov.uk/LAR/Landscape/PP/planning/research.asp .

5. In fact the total increase in traffic moving through the area, as monitored by the Highways Agency, was 76 per cent one year after the bypass opened. Most of this increase was due to traffic being diverted from other, smaller local roads onto they bypass following its completion. The additional traffic 'induced' by the new bypass was estimated at 27 per cent.

6. The WS Atkins Newbury Movement Study is available to download at webpage:
http://www.westberks.gov.uk/WestBerkshire/transport.nsf/pages/NewburyM114721.html . Page 37 of the Newbury Movement Study says 'across both roads [the A339 – the old A34 near central Newbury, and the new A34 bypass], the overall traffic has dramatically risen from 43,900 (1999) to 65,000 (2003), a rise of just under 50% in four years'

7. The North Wessex Downs AONB near Newbury. The Countryside Agency has recently (March 2006) published a discussion note which shows, using case studies, how the impact of new roads on landscape can be greatly reduced through careful design, construction and mitigation.

8. In 2004/2005 the total cost of evaluation for the Government's Highways Agency was only 0.1% of the £507 million spent on trunk road improvements.

9. South Coast Against Roadbuilding (SCAR) was formed in 1994, as an umbrella group to local groups fighting the threat of a superhighway along the south coast.

Our website address is: http://www.scar-uk.co.uk

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

020 7981 2880 (CPRE press office)

Case studies summary

	A27 Polegate Bypass	A34 Newbury Bypass	M65 Blackburn Southern Bypass
Date of opening	2002	1998	1997
Length	2.8 km	13.5 km	21 km
Nature of scheme	· Strategic trunk road improvement · Bypass	· Strategic trunk road improvement · Bypass	· Strategic trunk road improvement · Bypass
Main objections at time of inquiry	· Landscape damage by junctions/ roundabouts · Loss of land to development	· Damage to landscape, ecology and archaeology · Loss of land to development	· Damage to landscape and ecology
Main case study findings	· 76% total traffic increase in the Polegate corridor one year after opening - of which up to 27% may be generated traffic · Casualties across the area increased · Major development planned in wake of bypass · Cophall Roundabout remains intrusive in the landscape	· A34 traffic growth far above both predictions and national average · Peak-time congestion in town back to original levels · Traffic relief to old road is being eroded by development-generated traffic · Development towards bypass so far less than feared, but growing pressure for more · Landscape impacts as bad as predicted · Noise impacts worse and more widespread than predicted	· M65 traffic in excess of predictions leading to pressure for road widening · Traffic generation by developments omitted from appraisal process · Landscape impacts of developments omitted from appraisal process · Noise impacts extend much wider than the appraisal · Destruction of rural landscape at Stanworth Valley