Scrap the £12,000,000,000.00 road building
programme 15 October 2007
Petitions have long been sent
to the Prime Minister by post or delivered to the Number 10
door in person. You can now both create and sign petitions
on this website too, giving you the opportunity to reach a
potentially wider audience and to deliver your petition directly
to Downing Street.
The following petition was
recently created End
Road Building Petition and a response from the Governement
follows on immediatly after
We the undersigned
petition the Prime Minister to scrap the £12 billion
road building programme and invest the money in public transport
and making cycling and walking more attractive to reduce CO2.
The cost alone ought
to raise a few eyebrows: £50 million per mile or £800
per inch! The projected cost for the scheme is £2.521
billion, which could otherwise be used to fund a first-class
public transport system for the region.By the time the Olympics
are under way in London, "Peak Oil" will be making
its effects felt.
Declining fossil-fuel supplies and
the trend for ever-growing transport demand simply isn't being
addressed. Biofuels and all the problems associated with switching
agriculture to non-food production will not be able to meet
this demand. Maybe hard economics will resolve the traffic
congestion issue.
The Government's Climate Bill proposes
to place the target to cut carbon dioxide emissions - 60 per
cent from 1990 levels - by 2050 on to the statute books and
to create new powers to ensure the 2050 target is achieved.
Read
the Government's response
The Government is already investing heavily in improvements
to buses and trains and taking a wide range of measures to
reduce the environmental impact of car use and encourage walking
and cycling. However, the economy has been strong over the
last ten years and if prosperity is to continue to grow then
we must tackle congestion on the roads as well. This can only
be achieved by making better use of our existing road capacity
alongside some targeted road improvements.
Before taking decisions on the M1 and M25 and other motorway
widening schemes, the Government undertook a series of detailed
studies which examined a range of options, including demand
management and public transport improvements in order to identify
sustainable long-term solutions to problems on key parts of
the strategic road network.
The analysis from the studies clearly demonstrated that some
motorway widening was a necessary component of a strategy
aimed at tackling congestion on the strategic road network.
The M1 and M25 are key transport arteries and it is essential
that they should provide an acceptable level of service for
the travelling public and business.
When assessing the need for these schemes, the Government
was mindful to ensure that a balance was struck between the
need for improved accessibility, the potential impact of these
schemes on the environment and the need to encourage sustainable
patterns of travel.
The decision to widen sections of both the M1 and M25 were,
therefore, taken with a parallel commitment to consider what
is necessary to ensure that effective measures are in place
to lock in the benefits of motorway widening through suitable
demand management measures. As part of this work, the Government
is examining the potential of moving away from the current
system of motoring taxation towards a national system of road
pricing.
The Government also recognise that whilst good transport
is central to a prosperous economy, we must also balance the
increasing demand for travel against our environmental goals.
We are taking a variety of actions to reduce the environmental
impact of transport. For example, we are working to improve
public transport services.
Buses provide the vast majority of all local public transport
journeys and that is why we are investing around £2.5
billion this financial year on the provision of bus services.
Our overall aim is to drive up standards in order to provide
a better quality service for those who already use public
transport and provide an attractive alternative for those
who currently drive for short journeys.
The Government is also investing £88m in the railway
each week and has made record investments in rolling stock.
More people are using the railway today with over 1 billion
passenger journeys last year - the highest number since the
1960s - making Britain's railway one of the fastest growing
in Europe.
Plans for legislation on climate change demonstrates our
commitment to taking action at home and so strengthens our
ability to be global leaders in developing a future framework
for climate change. The Government is determined to promote
the widest possible debate across the country and in Parliament
about the contents of any legislation. We are also committed
to promoting the use of more sustainable transport fuels for
environmental as well as security of supply reasons, as set
out in the recently published Energy White Paper 2007. Under
the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation five per cent of
transport fuel sold in the UK will have to come from renewable
sources by 2010.
We estimate that this will cut carbon emissions by one million
tonnes, equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.
In 2010 this one policy alone will save in excess of ten times
the additional carbon expected from the programme of improvements
to the strategic road network. Furthermore, the Government
now intends the level of the Obligation to rise above 5 per
cent after 2010-11 provided the fuel can be obtained from
sustainable sources and without endangering habitats.
The Government is also actively promoting fuel efficiency.
The Graduated Vehicle Excise Duty and the Company Car Tax
are now both linked to vehicles' carbon emissions. Motorists
can save hundreds of pounds in Vehicle Excise Duty, or thousands
of pounds in Company Car Tax by choosing the most fuel efficient
vehicles. We also recently launched a new £10 million
communications campaign on climate change, to encourage people
to use simple trips to drive in a more environmentally friendly
way.
Colour-coded energy efficiency labels for new cars, modelled
on those for household white goods, were launched in February
2005 and are now in most UK car showrooms. These enable consumers
to make informed and environmentally friendly choices when
they buy a new car.
Finally, we are also encouraging people to make more informed
choices about how and when they travel. In recent years there
has been growing interest in a range of transport policy initiatives
widely described as 'soft measures' but now referred to as
'Smarter Choices'.
These measures seek to give better information and opportunities
for individuals to use more sustainable transport. They include
workplace and school travel plans, personalised travel planning,
travel awareness campaigns, public transport information and
marketing, car clubs and car sharing schemes, as well as teleworking
and teleconferencing. As part of looking at more sustainable
travel the Government doubled Cycling England budget in June
2006 and we are investing £2.5 million in 2007/08 to
support walking to school initiatives.
Visit The
Highways Agency website for additional
infomation on the M1 M69 link road
Also why not
let us have your views on this on our
forum?
