It seems that WSCC has voted to support an environmentally
damaging bypass around Arundel and in so doing increase traffic and congestion
throughout Sussex. If it goes ahead this
road will draw in more traffic from elsewhere, will generate extra car journeys,
increase car dependency - more traffic, more traffic jams. To say nothing of the ongoing destruction of irreplaceable
habitat, the loss of landscape and ecological connectivity and decimation of
populations of internationally protected species.
Mike Tristram, representing the Binstead community, had this
to say:
“Yesterday I presented a petition, on behalf of the
community of Binsted and over 2000 others who support the Save Binsted
campaign, to WSCC’s Environment and Community Services Select Committee.
After my speech, representatives also spoke from Walberton (Parish Council),
Tortington Local Community, ArundelSCATE and OneArundel.
“Four of the five community groups gave WSCC good traffic,
environmental and community reasons why the officers’ recommendation to support
Option 5A should be rejected. Appalling damage to Binsted Woods, Binsted
Park, the village communities using the National Park in this area, and
Tortington, were all cited.
“And yet, four out of the five Select Committee members
present voted to trash the ‘Environmental and Community Services’ of this part
of Sussex, by supporting Option 5A. The Select Committee ignored WSCC’s
deeply-buried Landscape Strategy policy, and their officer persuaded them to
regard as ‘minor’ the fundamental flaws in environmental aspects of Highways
England’s consultation.
“Highways England are acting with unseemly haste, with a
toolkit of badly prepared figures and badly researched data, to try at all
human and environmental costs to get spades in the ground before the RIS1 money
runs out in 2020. Our local authority representatives, in WSCC and ADC,
should not collude in a quick-and-dirty job.
“They seem to think they can do whatever they want on the
grounds that the national interest overrides National Park status. But
the South Downs National Park was designated in the national interest.
The Binsted Woods areas affected by Option 5A, some protected wildlife species
and habitats, the heritage landscape of governance in Binsted, are all of
national importance. The long term national interest is to save the
Binsted area, not to destroy it.”
