Representation by Richard Holland
- Date submitted
- 16 September 2021
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
It is my belief that the Examination should pay particular attention to the following issues that arise from the scheme: 1. The scheme envisages and ensures an increase in traffic, displacing the current concentration into other areas. By doing so, it will mean the scheme doesn’t comply with government policies around climate change, and also the ‘modal shift’ away from private motor car use and towards cycling, walking and public transport. 2. The scheme envisages an increase in road accidents. Accidents, and the resulting injuries, deaths and trauma, should be minimised, not increased. 3. The scheme envisages and ensures increased carbon emissions. Therefore, the scheme runs contrary to international and national legislation and guidance. 4. There is a trade-off between mitigating pollution in some areas, and worsening it in others, such as Dinting Vale. Both Glossop and Tintwistle remain as Air Quality Management Areas, despite the claims of the scheme to reduce pollution. 5. The undeveloped character of the local countryside, on the fringes of the original National Park would be ruined by the scheme, entailing increasing urbanisation and encroachment on the beautiful open views. I understand that the scheme minimises the impacts on such important protected species as bats and barn owls by considering them ‘only’ of ‘local value’ - to an extent, this is true - as a local person, I and many others in the local community value them a great deal, and I am sure the same cannot be said of fragmented individuals in private motor cars merely ‘passing through’, perhaps until they reach their destination? 6. There is historical obstinacy in Highways England’s refusal to consider a lorry ban/weight reduction on the route in question. Yet whilst their view has remained static, the world has changing massively, and demands that this scheme is examined with reference to the declaration of a climate emergency and the review of the Treasury’s rules to assess the value of roads. 7. The promoters and backers of this scheme have been historically determined to effectively encroach onto a National Park, despite national policies requiring trunk road traffic to go around such areas. These policies exist for a primary reason: to protect such areas from through traffic. This must be upheld. It is notable that some of the promoters of this scheme see it as a step towards a greater objective of road which reaches directly into the Park. That cannot be allowed to happen.