 Alliance against road building |
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Alliance against road building |
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PRESS RELEASE –7th August 2006
MPs "UNIMPRESSED" BY GOVERNMENT'S £12 BILLION ROAD PROGRAMME
The influential Environmental Audit Committee today released a report [1]
which said that they "were unimpressed by the Secretary of State’s
defence of the Government’s record on road building". They recommended
that road schemes should be independently assessed for their impact on climate
change, and that they should also be assessed against public transport schemes.
They also said that infrastructure decisions are too important be left to regional
and local politicians, as climate change is a national and international issue,
and regions are more prone to chose road schemes. They also added that the combined
impact of the government's £12 billion road programme will increase emissions.
The damning report follows a joint report for Transport 2000, Friends of the
Earth, Road Block, RSPB and Sustrans by Steer Davies Gleeve [2]
released on 2 August which concluded that the government did not know the true
carbon impact of its road transport policies, and was set to miss its climate
change targets.
The Committee's report said:
"we recommend that the Department’s estimates of CO2 emissions arising
from road proposals should be subject to independent audit."
"the Department should deliberately apply more stringent criteria to appraisals
of proposals for the construction of new roads relative to lower carbon alternatives,
such as the combination of public transport improvements and demand management
measures."
Commenting on the recent move towards regional decision making on transport,
the Committee added:
"Because it is a global problem... climate change is a case in which it
makes less sense to hand over decisions on infrastructure priorities to local
and regional control, where more local and short term priorities will naturally
predominate."
Research by Transport 2000 has shown that when the regions were asked to chose
their ten-year transport priorities, on average over 72 per cent of the funding
went on road schemes, whereas in the South East and the East Midlands, 95 per
cent of funding went on roads [3].
Road Block has discovered that the government has CO2 data for less than half
the trunk road schemes it has approved [4]. The government
is also refusing to disclose the amount of CO2 produced by the local roads it
has produced as it can only be done "at disproportionate cost" [5].
Road Block has tendered to the government for this vital assessment work [6].
The Highways Agency in response to calls for it to do a carbon audit of the
impact of the massive £3.74 billion M1 widening from Luton to Leeds [7]
has been writing back to objectors saying:
"With regard to your request for a climate change impact assessment for
the scheme; as it is the global concentration of greenhouse gases that determines
the actual climate change, the change in global concentrations due to M1 widening
alone will be negligible. Hence a climate change assessment, as you request,
is not likely to produce any meaningful results... The results of the assessment
carried out for M1 widening Contract 1 between junctions 25-28 predict a 21.5
% increase in CO2 emissions from traffic over the road network affected by the
proposals".
Road Block is astonished at the complacency of the Highways Agency towards the
21.5 per cent increase in CO2 from the M1 junction 25-28 widening proposals.
There are now over 200 government approved road schemes, and combined they will
increase emissions massively, more than the savings made by biofuels or greener
cars.
The Committee accepted evidence from Salisbury Transport 2000 that the combined
impact of the roads programme would lead to the traffic growth that is fuelling
rising emissions, and noted that "by its (government's) own admission,
more road space leads to more traffic and emissions".
Road Block Coordinator Rebecca Lush said:
"It is no surprise the government is failing to reach its climate change
targets when it is building more roads which drive up emissions. The Department
for Transport has for years been approving over 200 road schemes without knowing
or caring what the climate implications are of its policies. They are refusing
to take responsibility for their roads programme. We agree with the Committee
that climate change is so critical that decisions on roadbuilding should not
be taken by regional or local politicians and road schemes should be independently
audited for their climate impacts and public transport tried before road schemes".
Notes to Editors:
[1] The cross party committee of MPs was established in 1997
to audit each government department's performance on environmental matters.
The Ninth Report of Session 2005-6 , Reducing Carbon Emissions from Transport
is available to view here
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmenvaud.htm
[2] Driving up carbon dioxide emissions from road transport:
an analysis of current Government projections. Copies of the report are available
from Friends of the Earth’s website at
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/driving_up_co2_emissions.pdf
[3] "Road schemes steal from public transport in regional
carve-up of transport funding" - Transport 2000 Press release issued Friday
10 February 2006
http://transport2000.org.uk/news/maintainNewsArticles.asp?NewsArticleID=291
Tables showing how the region's spent their 10 year allocations are here
http://www.roadblock.org.uk/roadschemes/RFATables_RegionalSummary.xls
[4] Written Answer by Road Minister Stephen Ladyman, 8 May 2006,
Hansard: Column 23W
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060508/text/60508w07.htm#60508w07.html_sbhd4
[5] Written Answer by Road Minister Stephen Ladyman, 20 June
2006, Hansard: Column 1732W http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060620/text/60620w1085.htm#column_1732W
Also, Written Answer by Road Minister Stephen Ladyman, 25 July, Hansard: Column
1306W
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060725/text/60725w2043.htm
[6] http://www.roadblock.org.uk/press_releases/2006-05-28.htm
[7] Email to Road Block from Highways Agency, 1 August 2006