Archived press release

Scrap the Bypass Programme says Friends of the Earth

13 April 1997

Bypasses are destructive, expensive and ineffective, according to a new report, 'Better than Bypasses' published today by Friends of the Earth. The Government's £1.6 billion trunk road bypass programme should be scrapped and the funds diverted into improved public transport and facilities for cyclists and pedestrians [1].

The Department of Transport currently funds a couple of trunk road bypasses each year.For the same money, it could fund up to 50 packages of public transport and cycling measures to reduce traffic levels in congested cities and towns [2]. Each year bids for dozens of such packages are turned down, or never submitted, through lack of funds for local transport measures [3].

The £80 million cost of the proposed Salisbury bypass, for example, is comparable to the£79 million given by the DoT for all local transport packages in England this year. The DoT is continuing to fund the £100 million Newbury bypass, while denying Oxfordshire County Council full funding for its £1.9m public transport bid because of "the tightness of this years settlement".

The Government has plans on its books for over 60 more trunk road bypasses. Road lobby groups like the British Road Federation are calling for hundreds more to built on trunk and local roads. The AA recently called for 300 bypasses to be built by 2005 [4].

'Better than Bypasses' shows that such bypass programmes would devastate the British countryside, use up scarce funds that could be better spent on alternatives, and fail to relieve traffic congestion in affected communities.

Simon Festing, transport campaigner at Friends of the Earth, and author of the report said:

"Calls for hundreds of new bypasses by the roads lobby are completely unrealistic. They would cost billions of pounds, could take a hundred years build,and would wreck vast tracts of British countryside. Meanwhile, in many places, hundreds, if not thousands, of communities would continue to suffer from excess traffic."

* Bypasses are ineffective in solving traffic problems because they offer minimal and only temporary traffic relief, while encouraging more cars onto the roads;
* Bypasses are disproportionately expensive, and cause excessive environmental damage;
* Bypass planning is not targeted towards local needs, and many are proposed as part of unnecessary long-distance 'strategic' routes;
* As Government policy moves away from road-building, there is a growing consensus that local public transport schemes, with encouragement for cycling and walking, provide cost-effective alternatives.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] "Better than Bypasses: How a new approach to transport planning could solve local traffic problems better than road-building" was published by Friends of the Earth today. Price £6.95.

[2] There are 63 Bypasses left in the trunk road programme (including Welsh schemes and "shadow tolled" schemes). Their total cost is £1.6 bn, at an average cost of£25m per bypass. If the roads programme is completed over 30 years, this would entail construction of two bypasses per year at a cost of £50m per year. This amount is equivalent to 50 local authority package bids of £1m (the average annual award for a package bid over the past few years). The estimate does not take into account the soaring costs of road construction, cost overruns or interest payments on private"shadow tolled" roads.

[3] The following are examples of package bids which failed to get full funding in the transport financial settlement for 1997-98.

1. Merseytravel rapid transit major scheme bid - Merseyside
2. Oxford package - Oxfordshire County Council
3. Bexhill & Hastings package - East Sussex
4. South East Hampshire Transportation Strategy package
5. Romney Marsh package - Kent
6. Strategic traffic action in rural areas 2 - Surrey County Council
7. Bognor Regis package West Sussex County Council
8. SCRIPT project - West Sussex County Council
9. West Midlands Transport major scheme bid - Birmingham city council
10. Leeds Supertram - Leeds City Council
11. Sheffield City Council

[4] The Automobile Association "Living with the Car" 1997
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