Archived press release

Newbury Bypass provides eight years relief for A34, admits leaked Berkshire County Council plan

6 May 1996

A transport plan leaked to Friends of the Earth shows that even with traffic management, the benefits' of the 100 million Newbury Bypass to the A34 in Newbury would be wiped out by the year 2006.

Berkshire County Council's Newbury Transport Strategy, which is to be published on Tuesday, admits that even if its "challenging" target is achieved, "traffic conditions on the existing A34 in 2006 would return to the current position" [1]. It also shows that the Council has seriously considered building yet another relief road to the West of Newbury to deal with additional traffic.

This leaked document undermines claims by the local MP, Mr David Rendel, that "by taking through traffic around Newbury's bypass we can abolish the traffic jams" [2]. Mr Rendel has repeatedly said that the traffic levels on the A34 will not rise after the Newbury Bypass is built because"the district council is planning to implement all sorts of other measures in Newbury." [3]

Simon Festing, Transport Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:

"This leaked document shows that the 100 million to be squandered on the Newbury bypass is a waste of taxpayers money. The bypass will bring just eight years traffic relief for the A34 at the price of massive damage to the surrounding countryside."

The Department of Transport's Green Paper on transport released last week noted the "growing belief that building and widening roads in response to growing demand does not offer a long-term solution to the problems caused by traffic growth" [4].

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] Berkshire County Council's Newbury Transport Strategy' is to be published for consultation on Tuesday 7th May 1996. The plans are then likely to be submitted to the Government as a package bid' for funding.The purpose of the study is to "develop solutions to the transport problems of the area".

It states that "the successful management of travel demand is one of the key components of the Newbury area transport strategy, if not the most important. The target of 4,000 journeys by 2006 directed away from peak hour car traffic represents a challenging product on its own.."

But "on the basis of the demand management target established earlier being successfully achieved... traffic conditions on the existing A34 in 2006 would return to the current position. [ie 8 years after the bypass opens].

Furthermore, the A34, far from being traffic calmed is to remain a major trunk road. The plan states the "The current proposals are that it [the A34]will retain trunk road status and be renumbered as the A339".

[2] Mr Rendel states this in a letter dated February 1996.

[3] Challenge: The Journal for Green Democrats. Spring 1996. Mr Rendel made it clear that the traffic levels would not come up again in Newbury because of these traffic management measures.

Mr Rendel has made similar claims in interviews, for example from the transcript of London News on 16.01.96, he states that "the district council and the county council have plans to put in traffic management measures once the bypass is built which will restrict any traffic increases."

[4] Transport: The Way Forward, was published in April 1996 as a response to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution report and the Government's own national debate' on transport policy. The Royal Commission had recommended that the Department of Transport should"investigate whether some town or villages could obtain most of the benefits of a bypass, more cost effectively and with less environmental damage, through traffic management measures". But this was ignored in the section on road-building.

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