Archived press release

Controversial bypass plans thrown out

9 June 2000

Plans for the controversial Lancaster Western Bypass have been rejected by a Government-appointed planning inspector. The inspector has recommended that the proposed road be deleted from Lancaster City Council's local plan.

The road, which was proposed to relieve city centre traffic congestion [1], would have been highly environmentally damaging [2]. In the 1999 local elections, the Labour party, which supports the bypass, lost six of its seven seats along its proposed route.

Mags Adams of North Lancashire Friends of the Earth said:
“This is great news, and will hopefully be the final nail in the coffin of a highly damaging road scheme. We must now move on and look for other solutions to the very real traffic and unemployment problems in the area”

Local campaigners believe that a comprehensive programme of local transport improvements [3] would address the problems better at a much lower cost, and that other measures would be much more effective and reliable at creating jobs.

Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth's Transport Campaigner, said:
“This should be a timely reminder to the Government as they put the finishing touches to their 10-year transport plan. Even if an area has problems of unemployment and traffic congestion, building roads is not the answer”

NOTES TO EDITORS
[1] Lancashire County Council was forced to admit that the traffic moved out of the city was equivalent to only six to seven years' growth.

[2] The £90 million road would have run parallel to the Lune Estuary SSSI, part of Morecambe Bay, which is recognsised for its international importance for wading birds. It would have devastated the estuarine landscape, highly valued by local people, with viaducts crossing the rivers Lune and Condor, as well as the Lancaster canal. Six Biological Heritage Sites,including woodlands, marshland and ponds would have been damaged.

[3] Local campaigners have called for measures including improved bus services, a real network of cycle lanes and local 'home zones' and facilities to put freight onto the rails.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust