Landscapes Under Threat - High and Low Newton Bypass
Photo: Ronny Mitchell
The Government is proposing to build a £22m 3.8km dual carriageway bypass on the A590 in Cumbria around the hamlet of High and Low Newton. The A590 is an important link road between Barrow-in-Furness and the M6. Pro-bypass campaigners claim that the bypass would make the road safer and would increase the economic prosperity of the Barrow-in-Furness region. In 2003 the Government finally gave the go-ahead and work is due to start in 2005-6.
The proposed line of the bypass cuts through a swathe of open countryside within the Lake District National Park, an area of land supposedly afforded a greater degree of protection, where alternatives should be sought. Friends of the Lake District has long argued that a bypass was not the solution. There was no evidence linking the proposed bypass to economic prosperity. As for the bypass resulting in fewer fatalities, we had argued that it was speed that killed and campaigned for a reduction in the speed limit on the road through High and Low Newton. Since implementation of a 40mph speed limit in 2001 there have been no fatal accidents in the speed limit zone.
Construction of this bypass will not solve the traffic problems of the A590, it will just move cars and lorries faster from one section on the route to the next. A bypass is an old-fashioned solution to an old problem and what is needed is an analysis of the whole route examining issues more strategically, avoiding this inefficient, piecemeal approach of addressing trouble spots in isolation.
Would the Labour Government who ensured the Lake District became a National Park 50 years ago be pleased with this desecration - one thinks not!
Friends of the Lake District website is: www.fld.org.uk