Representation by Zakida Bi
- Date submitted
- 14 September 2021
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am against this scheme for the following reasons: 1. It would be the start of a new expressway across the Peak District National Park to South Yorkshire, driving more traffic across this beautiful area and devastating its strongly protected landscapes. 2. It would increase CO2 emissions and worsen the Climate Emergency. Greater Manchester and Sheffield Authorities are rightly pushing for big reductions in car travel to meet their Net Zero Carbon targets. The focus should be on reducing traffic, not building more roads. 3. It would increase traffic and push the traffic jam a bit further east on to the A628 trunk road and the A57. It is a widely accepted fact that more road space generates new traffic and this is always significantly greater than that forecasted. 4. Air pollution levels would remain at unacceptable levels – Highways England modelling of local air quality with the link roads shows that NO2 concentrations would remain above the legal limit in Mottram, Dinting Vale and along the A628. Any proposed scheme should fully resolve such issues. 5.This road would spoil the countryside and landscapes around Mottram, and ruin people’s enjoyment of them and their wildlife. This beautiful part of the world is being slowly eroded by needless development when we should be focussing on finding sustainable solutions. The root cause of the issues is heavy transport through the National Park. I believe the solution is to ban lorries across the National Park and invest in rail links to enable more efficient and reliable transportation of goods. We need more forward thinking measures to be implemented urgently if we are to relieve all the local communities and avert the climate threat to all our futures and those of our children.