Representation by Dr Tim Marshall
- Date submitted
- 10 January 2019
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
There are more than sufficient strong reasons for the Inpectorate to recommend refusal of this project. This should be refusal of the whole scheme. If the Examining Inspectors find reasons to consider say one part, such as for example the Winterbourne Stoke bypass, as possibly approvable, Highways England should go back to the beginning and consider this part afresh.
It is essential that the scheme is considered as a whole, in relation to alternative options, and within a long term perspective, the kind of perspective looking to the end of the century and fully taking into account the likely changes in society, technologies and climate over this period. It will be tragic if the early twenty first century destroys an area that has survived to the degree it has for the millenia since the area was settled by humans, this destruction happening in the blink of an eye in comparison with those timescales, by the operation of a thoroughly flawed logic.
Two of the central reasons for not approving the DCO are as follows.
Firstly, the scheme emerged simply from a Treasury decision in 2013, not from a genuine and rigorous consideration of alternative options in the proper wider sense - as the documentation makes clear, for example in chapter 3 of the PEIR (weak as this is). All the narrowing down which has taken place since 2014 has no doubt been conscientiously carried through its various Stages, but the absence of proper consideration at the start means that this all has limited validity. The PINS examination should consider this, to make this examination worthwhile. The current National Networks NPS, in spite of its widely criticised weaknesses, does not provide carte blanche support for approval of all sub-standard road schemes.
This scheme should have been the subject some years ago of a full and totally independent public debate, sponsored not by the developer (Highways England), whose remit to build the scheme is after all clear enough. Unfortunately no such full debate was held, when the real alternatives of long term sustainable transport policy making could have been presented and deliberated on. The widespread public scepticism about these consultation processes will only increase if the current procedures are not amended. The A303 project is a good example of the problems generated. There are practical alternatives, as I and others have repeatedly argued. Government and Highways England simply turn a blind eye to these alternatives.
Secondly, the scheme worsens the impact on the area as a whole. The present situation is not seriously damaging to the area, in the opinion of very many visitors and archaeological and planning experts. The project damages the landscape by its massive scale and by its intrusion into the ground of the district, to achieve something which is not at all necessary, in long term transport policy, planning and environmental terms. The project will in fact seriously worsen the long term prospects for moves to sustainable travel patterns in this part of England.