DCC Public Meeting speeches

SPEECHES

Below is a collection of speeches delivered at the March 2nd 2007 Dorset County Council public meeting

1) Rebecca Lush - Transport 2000 - PLEASE SEE IN THE CO2 PAGE
2) Graham Bradley - Woodland Trust
3) Ron Davis - South Dorset Ramblers Association
4) Dr Guy Dickinson – Local Resident
5) Brian Heatley – Local Resident
6) Paul McIntosh - Dorset Agenda 21
7) David Moth – Bypass The Bypass
8) Anne Neale – Local resident
9) David Peacock - Dorset Sustainable Transport.
10) Ken Reed on behalf of the Cyclists’ Touring Club
11) Vincent Stops – Sometime local resident
12) Howard Thomas - CPRE
13) Derek Fawell - Local resident


1) Rebecca Lush - Transport 2000 (see in the carbon dioxide section)

2) Graham Bradley

Graham Bradley on behalf of the Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust is one of the United Kingdom’s foremost conservation charities and is dedicated to the protection of the nation’s native woodland heritage. It owns over 1,100 sites throughout the UK that provide close to 50,000 acres of woodlands that can be enjoyed by the public free of charge. Its membership is in excess of 300,000.
The Trust’s portfolio includes Two Mile Coppice that is in the line of the currently proposed Weymouth Relief Road. It is well to remember that in 1997 237 local residents contributed close to £40,000 to make it possible for the Trust to purchase this woodland for its future protection. At the time the Brown Route version of the proposed relief road was in vogue which did not pose a direct threat to its existence.
Two Mile Coppice is the last remaining ancient woodland in the Borough of Weymouth & Portland. The Borough is in the poorest area of the County of Dorset for both the survival of ancient woodland and the occurrence of specialist woodland species. It is an area of isolated woodland of varying character but with a good range of characteristic ancient woodland species throughout. Its very isolation increases its nature conservation value and its tranquillity is much appreciated and enjoyed by the public.
As an ancient woodland the loss of part, and damage to the remainder, of Two Mile Coppice is of major concern to us.
Ancient woodland is:
• The jewel in the crown of woodland types and no more can be created. It dates back from the year 1600 or earlier. Before this, planting was uncommon so a wood, present in 1600, was likely to have developed naturally at an earlier date.
• The UK’s equivalent of the rain forest and, as with the rain forest, we have already allowed too much to be destroyed. Since the end of the Second World War nearly 50% of our ancient woodland has been lost. Ancient woodland now covers just over 2% of the UK. The Trust is currently working and fighting to save 434 ancient woodland areas that are under threat from development.
• A timeline back into distant history and is arguably one of the most beautiful habitats in the natural world. It is only as beautiful as it is because of continuity. Like a fine wine or an antique it gets better and more interesting with age.
• The richest habitat in the UK, containing more threatened and vulnerable species than any other. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan, published in 1994, outlines that it can support up to 232 species.
• Very special. We are not dealing with Beaujolais Nouveau or MFI but the real McCoy.
Jim Knight MP is an ardent supporter of the proposed Weymouth Relief Road and when he speaks here today no doubt he will be insisting that it must be built at any cost to the natural environment. You may be interested in what Mr Knight had to say on the subject of ancient woodland when, in June 2005, as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra with responsibility for Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity, he launched ‘Keepers of Time’, a Statement of Policy for England’s Ancient and Native Woodland:
‘England's diverse and beautiful landscapes are justly famous the world over’.
‘Our ancient woodlands are quintessential features of these much loved landscapes - irreplaceable, living historic monuments which inspire us and provide us with a sense place and history in an increasingly frenetic world’.
‘Addressing loss and decline by tackling the threats to our ancient and native woodlands will be the first priority.’
Two Mile Coppice occupies 14.17 acres of the 51.8 acres of the Lorton Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Jim Knight was still in post as Minister with responsibility for Biodiversity when, in August 2005, Planning Policy Statement 9: Biodiversity and Geological Conservation was published by his Department.
PPS 9 makes it clear at paras.7 & 8 that SSSIs should be given a high degree of protection under the planning system and where a proposed development on land within a SSSI is likely to have an adverse effect on the SSSI, planning permission should not normally be granted.
Para.10 of PPS 9 specifically addresses the protection of ancient woodland:
‘Ancient woodland is a valuable biodiversity resource both for its biodiversity of species and for its longevity as woodland. Once lost it cannot be recreated. Local planning authorities should not grant planning permission for any development that would result in its loss or deterioration unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location outweigh the loss of the woodland habitat.’
The Woodland Trust considers the proposed Weymouth Relief Road to be an extremely damaging and unnecessary development. We are in agreement with Natural England and other objectors that the need for increasing road capacity to solve the congestion problems of the A354 through Upwey and Broadwey has not been proven. It could be concluded that Dorset County Council has neither the will, the vision nor the expertise to develop more sustainable solutions based on traffic management and modal shift through improved public transport, workplace and school travel plans, encouraging cycling and walking and so on – solutions that are now routinely being put in place by other Local Highway Authorities, whether or not they have the opportunity to build bypasses through open countryside.
Chairman, I urge you and your Committee not to permit this road scheme to go ahead.

3) Ron Davis

Ron Davis on behalf of South Dorset Group Ramblers’ Association
On behalf of the South Dorset Group of the Ramblers' Association, I wish to oppose the proposed relief road. One of the charitable aims of the Ramblers’ Association is the preservation and enhancement for the benefit of the public of the beauty of the countryside. This proposal would severely damage the South Dorset Ridgeway in the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There would also be a major impact on Southdown Ridge in the Area of Local Landscape Interest, the Lorton Meadows Nature Reserve and the ancient woodland in Two Mile Coppice, a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
I accept that the revised application modifies the impact on the Ridgeway, but it does little or nothing to alleviate the situation in the Bincombe Valley, where noise pollution alone will destroy the tranquillity of this area. There will be a similar effect on the Lorton Valley Nature Reserve.
Government’s Policy Planning Statement 7 makes it clear that major developments should not take place in AONBs except in exceptional circumstances, and that alternative options must be considered. Policy Planning Statement 9 sets out similar criteria for SSSIs.
It seems that non - roadbuilding alternatives have not been seriously considered. There are plans for a park and ride scheme, a better bus service and improved cycle facilities, but these are scheduled to take effect after the road has been built. Why not incorporate such measures into a strategy designed to reduce traffic on the existing road?
Also, Weymouth is fortunate in having a railway station near to the town centre; Dorchester has two! This line is grossly under utilised. Some of the money scheduled to be spent on the road could be spent on providing better facilities and an improved and more financially attractive rail service. There may be problems relating to specific votes and budgets, but these could be resolved given the political will.
These views are shared by Natural England, a statutory body that has also opposed the Planning Application. The role of Natural England is to conserve and enhance the natural environment for its intrinsic value, with specific responsibilities for AONBs and SSSIs.
The fact is that building a new road will not work. It will alleviate the situation on the Dorchester road for a limited time, by transferring the problem elsewhere. It is becoming generally accepted that covering the countryside in tarmac will not solve transport problems, and this area is no exception. What is needed are methods of matching traffic to capacity.
What building new roads does is generate additional traffic. Traffic through Dorchester is now greater than when the bypass was built.
A joint study by the then Countryside Agency and the Campaign to Protect Rural England has shown that traffic growth has exceeded predictions on three of the most controversial bypasses built in recent years. For example, traffic on the Newbury Bypass, opened in 1998, was forecast to be 30,000 vehicles a day by 2010. In fact, in 2004, it had already risen to 43,400 and, in 2003, peak-time traffic on the old road was back to almost pre-bypass levels. Similar results were found for the A27 Polegate Bypass near Eastbourne, and the M65 Southern Bypass in Lancashire.
There is no reason to believe that this area would be exempt from similar consequences if we were to undertake similar measures.
In his response to the road pricing petition, Tony Blair says that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity.
In summary, we believe that the proposal is not a viable solution to the traffic problem on the Dorchester road at peak times, and does not meet the criteria for despoiling designated areas of countryside. The solution lies in the serious application of non – roadbuilding measures, of which there are many options.
I trust that you will reach the same conclusion.


4) Dr Guy Dickinson

Dr Guy Dickinson, resident of Weymouth

My name is Guy Dickinson and I speak on behalf of myself, my family and their future.

I can understand why people think, at first, there is a need for a bypass. However, the more I think, the more I am convinced that it isn’t a good idea at all – quite the reverse in fact. And there are many very persuasive reasons why this road should not be built

Most important is the problem of carbon dioxide production and global warming. We hear almost daily how serious this is - including many statements from the current Labour government, of whom we all know Mr Knight (a great supporter of the road) is a member. We all know – or should do by now – that the earth is heating up with frightening weather changes. Deserts are predicted in south Europe; low lying countries flooded with millions homeless, polar bears extinct, London flooded, frequent hurricanes – and so on. And yet we have proposals here to spend 78 million pounds on a project which will actually increase CO2 production….. This is not in line with the government’s ambitions and certainly not in line with common sense.

If that isn’t enough, there are other reasons why the road should not even be contemplated.

As a doctor, who incidentally uses the Dorchester road daily for work and also lives a few feet from it, let me make a medical analogy why this bypass will not help.

If a patient has narrowing of a major artery, bypass surgery round that narrowing will not even be considered by a surgeon if there is poor, what is called, ‘run-off’. This means there has to be good flow (or run-off) further downstream from the narrowing to deal with the increased flow.

Applying this analogy to Weymouth, there is a very poor ‘run-off’. There are too many cars already in Weymouth with frequent jams all over - for example the Esplanade, the harbour side, Boot Hill, Rodwell, Chickerell Road to name but a few. This proposed road just shoves the problem out of sight (through another housing area) without solving anything. It will encourage more cars (as all new road building does) and the town will be even more gridlocked.

No surgeon would operate on this case.

No, there are much better solutions. Firstly and very important is increasing and massively improving public transport so that people will want to use it (it is hardly attractive at present). Secondly reduced car use. For example, surely there can be more effective travel arrangements made for those working for the various council offices in Dorchester and also the hospital - as they contribute greatly to the traffic at rush hour. Also there are alternatives to the driving of children to school, often with one child per car. Thirdly there are other solutions such as the restructuring the Littlemoor junction. There isn’t time now but there are many other positive solutions as well.

Last - but certainly not least. This road would cause irreversible, unnecessary, catastrophic vandalism to a beautiful part of the countryside.

Looking at this plan in the very best light possible, the benefits are extremely dubious - but in reality, this road is a very bad idea indeed.


5) Brian Heatley, resident of Weymouth

I am Brian Heatley. I'm lucky enough to live in the barn in the middle of the Dorset Wildlife Trust reserve at Lorton Meadows. The new road if built would pass 60-70 metres from our front door. It will bring noise, pollution and will destroy some precious remaining natural countryside which I walk on every day.

My objection is a NIMBY objection – and I resent the notion that NIMBY objections are somehow wrong, or to be discounted. It is entirely proper to seek to prevent something that seriously damages your own interests, just as those who live on the Dorchester Road are seeking to protect their interests from the growth in traffic along that road.

So we have a very personal objection. And I share all the objections raised by others to the destruction of wildlife and landscape inherent in building the road.

I am also a member of the West and South Dorset Green Party which opposes the new road. And as it happens I am the national Policy Coordinator of the Green Party, and from that perspective I want to make my main objection to the road. The Green Party oppose all new roads, and so in particular oppose this one.

Let me explain. A road is a very long term business. This one will take many years to build, and will be there for at least 100 years if not more – parts of the current road are Roman. So we must look at the proposal in a very long term context, not just whether it might assist our economy over 10-15 years.

And that means we must take account of what the Government's Chief Scientist has called the biggest single challenge facing us, climate change.

Later this month the Government is expected to publish its Climate Change Bill. It will probably call for a reduction in UK greenhouse gas emissions of 60% by 2050, which sounds a lot but which could be achieved at a rate of reduction of just a little more than 1% per year. Not too serious then, we'll make cars more efficient and there won't be a lot of effect on traffic on the Dorchester Road – a comfortable policy framework in which to carry on building roads.

But this Government policy makes particular assumptions about climate change. It assumes that we will aim in the long run to stabilise the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at about 550 ppm CO2 equivalent. The Government's own Stern Report published last October said at that level of greenhouse gases that there is a 75-99% chance (that is near certainty) of global warming exceeding 2 degrees Celsius, and with that a high chance of runaway and disastrous climate change. And that could mean things like the end of the gulf stream, plunging us into an ice age, and massive sea level rises.

We in the Green Party think it is wrong to accept that level of risk. We think we should stabilise the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a level just a bit above the present level. We will still have a small chance of triggering runaway, disastrous climate change. Very worrying, but that's where we are. But we'd need a big effort now to achieve this, reducing our emissions by not 1% per year but 6-9% per year.

To make reductions that fast we must amongst other things very substantially reduce road traffic and so we do not need to build new roads. The various sustainable technological alternatives touted – electric cars, biofuels, hydrogen cars – are all expensive and simply cannot be economically re-produced on the same scale as our existing system of cars based on fossil fuels.

To reduce road transport we must both travel less and massively increase alternatives, like walking, cycling and public transport. Between Dorchester and Weymouth we need to make better use of the railway. Dorchester Road could then return to a state of relative tranquillity, and no relief road would be needed.

You may say that we are bound locally by the broad policy on transport adopted by the government. I say that that this particular government policy is simply not sustainable, and that at sometime in the next few years government will have to accept that drastic limitation of road transport is inevitable, and that building new roads is pointless. We will then be left with an empty bypass running through countryside ruined forever – a monument to the illusion that we can go on living in the way we are doing so today.

Please don't be the Planning committee so short-sighted as to approve the last major road scheme to be built in Britain.


6) Paul McIntosh on behalf of Dorset Agenda 21

Dorset Agenda 21 is a county wide sustainability charity. We work with a diverse range of people and organisations to encourage sustainable living in Dorset.

Jonathon Porritt, Chair of the Government’s independent watchdog the Sustainable Development Commission, has provided a simple definition of sustainability: ‘If something is sustainable we can go on doing it indefinitely, if it isn't we can't.’

Dorset Agenda 21 objects to the Weymouth Relief Road on the grounds that it is not sustainable and that insufficient energy has been put into pursuing alternative solutions.

Of significant concern to the charity is the very real issue of Climate Change. We are all aware of the issue but translating this awareness into real change we have found can be a difficult process, notably in relation to transportation issues.

Climate change is now acknowledged to be the greatest threat facing mankind this century. We wish to emphasis that whilst this is a global problem, the effects of which are not felt with any present day immediacy, real choices have to be made at a local level now to combat it. We believe that one such choice is whether or not we pursue the construction of this road.

Indeed Weymouth & Portland Borough Council already has been minded to take into account potential sea level rises in compiling its Local Development Framework. We urge Dorset County Council to use this same long term thinking when it considers the construction of this road.

Road transport in 2005 was estimated to account for 21% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions (the main contributor to climate change), and emissions by road transport are forecast to rise by an additional 6% by 2010.

The Government has set a target for carbon dioxide reduction of 20% by 2010 and is likely to adopt a 60% reduction target by 2050 in forthcoming climate change legislation.

We believe it is vital that Dorset fulfils its responsibility to contribute to the meeting of these targets.

By building the relief road we believe that this will adversely affect its ability to do so by, amongst other points; adding additional road capacity which will increase road usage in the area and thereby emissions as well as create bottlenecks of congestion elsewhere in the borough.

Key to Dorset meeting this responsibility we believe is the development of a sustainable transport system for Dorset, in particular for the Weymouth-Dorchester Corridor. We believe Dorset County Council’s transport agenda should be centred on this objective. By, for example:

• Reducing the need for travel by encouragement of the provision of local goods and services.

• Encouraging alternative means of travel to the private car through the provision of vastly improved public transport services and safe cycling and pedestrian routes and the implementation of comprehensive green travel plans for workplaces and schools.

• Taking responsibility to challenge attitudes towards road transport, part of which must involve not encouraging greater use of the car.

We are concerned that the Council’s Second Local Transport Plan proposes investment in these or related measure that is dwarfed by its proposed investment in road building, of which the Weymouth Relief Road is obviously the largest component.

We agree with the Council that the 2012 Olympic Games provide a real opportunity for the raising of the profile of the area. However, we totally disagree with its proposal that the Weymouth Relief Road should be its legacy, let alone its most important one. To provide increased road capacity under the banner of the Olympics is in fundamental contradiction with the Games overarching commitment – that every spectator will arrive at the Games by public transport, by cycle or on foot.

We also believe that the proposed relief road would not contribute to a sustainable economic future for the area. It would encourage the very things we should be discouraging – increased travel by car, which will give rise to increased congestion and carbon dioxide emissions. Further, what is often forgotten is that the earth’s deposits of oil and coal are a precious resource that will inevitably become increasingly scarce and expensive. We believe that the economies of the future will be increasingly based more locally due to increased transportation costs, and this is can be an opportunity for development of new skills and jobs, rather than a threat.

We believe that the borough has the resources within itself to create a dynamic, thriving, and sustainable local economy - one which will provide realistic incomes and provide a high quality of life for its people. The question we believe is one of vision. Building a road we believe will merely contribute to removal of economic activity from the borough, for example by encouraging longer commuting distances.

We believe that by building this road we are not taking into account these longer-term challenges. By factoring them into the way we think about economic development we can achieve a better idea of how the borough can prosper in the future.

In summary:

We believe the Weymouth relief road asks real questions about Dorset County Council’s commitment to sustainability and its ability to take into consideration longer-term effects of its actions

Agenda 21’s most understood phrase “think global, act local’ has never been so relevant.

The congestion and access issues surrounding Dorchester Road are unusual in Dorset but are common elsewhere. What is not common is the potential for effective alternatives, nor is it common to have the option of building a road.

Therefore, whilst Dorset Agenda 21 recognises that the council has made efforts to minimise environmental impact, and mindful of significant public support for the scheme, we consider that truly innovative and sustainable solutions for the Dorchester-Weymouth Corridor have not been sufficiently explored.

In conclusion:

We can no longer live as we are at the moment, using resources as if we have 3 planets, not one.

We must all, in the words of David Attenborough:

"…….learn what sustainability means in practice if we are to apply it to our daily lives and restore the health and vitality of our planet".

We argue that to continue to develop road schemes such as the Weymouth Relief road and to continue to encourage and facilitate our current reliance on road transport does not meet this challenge.

Therefore for all that has been outlined, we re-emphasise our objection to the application to construct the Weymouth relief road.


7) David Moth on behalf of ‘Bypass the Bypass’ Residents Action Group*

Thank you, Chairman, for allowing me to address your Committee on behalf of 'BYPASS THE BYPASS'.

My talk today will briefly address some of the issues which our newly formed local group is concerned about. We are anxious that the people of Weymouth are presented with accurate information regarding the proposed Weymouth Relief Road.

Both the Stern and Eddington Reports have concluded that road transport must pay its environmental costs and recognise that road building does not always represent good value for money. In fact the Prime Minister himself has said that it is environmentally irresponsible to attempt to build our way out of the problems we face on the roads; we must seek more environmentally friendly solutions and we must utilise our existing transport networks more efficiently. Motor transport accounts for 21% of UK carbon dioxide emissions - this is a figure we simply must reduce for the future of both Weymouth and the planet. It is just not acceptable for us to acknowledge that the nation has to reduce the number of cars on the road and at the same time, by insisting that the relief road is built regardless, indicate that Dorset is not required to play its part.

There is considerable evidence to hand which shows that bypasses don’t do what’s expected of them. For example, traffic on the Newbury Bypass, opened in 1998, was forecast to be 30,000 vehicles a day by 2010. In fact, in 2004, it had already risen to 43,400 and, in 2003, morning peak-time traffic on the old road was back to almost pre-bypass levels.

The Weymouth relief road has been promoted partly on the basis that it going to improve road safety and lead to reductions in collisions and casualties. If that were true then spending £78 million on a bypass would be a very expensive way to go about it and it is clear that there are other measures available that would bring about a similar reduction in road casualties more quickly and at far less cost.

For example, after years of delay the Council finally decided last year to introduce on the A354 between Manor Roundabout and Nottington Lane a reduction in the speed limit from 40 to 30 mph.

What the Council has yet to do for the A354 is to introduce a reduction from the current 60 mph speed limit over the Ridgeway and round the hairpin bend - and perhaps install a safety camera to encourage compliance.

The replacement of the A354/Littlemoor Road T-junction with a roundabout might, at the same time as smoothing the flow of traffic and reducing delays, be expected to also improve safety because the present layout of the junction is not safe for pedestrians, who have to negotiate a dangerous 'blind' corner when crossing the Littlemoor Road.

There has also been considerable discussion on the potential for delays for the emergency services on the existing A354. The truth is that the potential for delays is just as likely to increase as it is to decrease if the bypass were to be built. This is because, with the bypass in place, traffic on the link between the Ridgeway and Stadium Roundabout is forecast to inrease by up to 43% by the design year 2025 - this compares with a forecast increase of only 24% if the bypass were not to be built.

That the Council is seriously concerned about this increase in traffic is evidenced by its proposal to spend up to two million pounds on a major upgrade of Stadium Roundabout to reduce the certain chaos that would ensue at that junction. But improving the junction would do nothing to reduce the congestion on the link to the south of it, with forecast flows of up to 33,800 vehicles per day.

The truth is that no evidence has been brought forward by either Dorset County Council or the Ambulance Service that there have been life-threatening journey delays on the A354. As on the tens of thousands of other stretches of road in Great Britain with similar or greater traffic levels, drivers cooperate fully in such circumstances. They pull over and stop until the ambulance has passed.

In conclusion, we, the local residents of Weymouth, would press for the examination of non-road building alternatives, which will preserve our countryside and help to reduce climate change. Building this road will do neither. Maybe the very act of abandoning the road will focus peoples’ minds and initiate the desire and commitment to seek out sustainable solutions.

Thank you, Chairman.


* David Moth was unable to make the presentation himself because of a family bereavement. In his absence, Ken Reed read his submission.

8) Anne Neale, resident of Weymouth

The construction of an Upwey and Broadway bypass has been the County’s top priority for many years.

Yet it is yesterday’s solution to today’s and tomorrow’s transport problems.

The County failed to bring about a planned reduction in its carbon dioxide emissions in 2005/2006. The bypass will increase Dorset’s carbon dioxide emissions by over 2,000 tonnes in its opening year alone.

Despite this the Council considers that the extra carbon dioxide emissions caused by their relief road are not in their direct control. They certainly are if they don’t build it. The contribution of 2,000 tonnes from the relief road in 2010 would be wiped out at a stroke.

During the past 7 years targets and commitments of more sustainable transport activities have been suffering. Yet over 7 million pounds of Council Tax has been spent on attempts to progress the scheme. This money could have been spent on improvements.

For example:

• Weymouth still has no public transport interchange facility

• Road casualty reduction targets have not been met, resulting in an extra 203 adults and 29 children being killed or seriously injured on the roads of Dorset.

• There is no evidence that there has been an increase in cycling in the County and cycleways remain uncompleted

• The County has failed to fully deliver commitments to bus priority measures and Park & Ride facilities

• Five of the six targets on school travel have not been met.

• There remain no formal Bus Quality Partnerships in Dorset.

• Even after 6 years the council’s own travel plan has not been fully implemented

• There has been a reluctance to participate in the Government’s Rural Bus Challenge, reflecting a disinterest in bus travel.


Delivery of the County’s First Local Transport Plan was so bad that it was given the lowest level of approval by the Department for Transport. That’s just very, very bad to you and me.

The Department notes:

There is little evidence of positive contributions to climate change and no clear evidence of a sustainable transport agenda.

The Department’s assessment of the County’s Second Local Transport Plan also contains some damning statements:

• The Plan has no vision for County traffic levels in the future.

• The Plan takes no account of core countywide problems and does not seek to identify solutions.

• The Plan makes little attempt to move away from car use and because of this has an overwhelming commitment to road improvements.

• The Plan fails to identify greener alternatives by lumping them in with the cost of road schemes like the Weymouth Relief road.

The Department for Transport seems to agree with those of us who are opposed to this road scheme. That is, the Council are paying only lip-service to the non-road building measures needed for sustainability.

The futility of continuing to put precious resources into promoting road schemes, particularly the Weymouth Relief Road, in the 21st century is obvious to me.

Chairman, thank you for listening.


County Council records indicate that £7.305217 million has been spent on the WRR from 1992/1993 to 2006/2007 (15 years).

9) David Peacock on behalf of Dorset Sustainable Transport.

Chairman, I wish to draw your attention to Chapter 8 of the Environmental Statement – the Economic Effects of the proposed relief road. No doubt you have noticed, as I have, that there is something peculiar about this Chapter – that it contains not a shred of validated, relevant evidence that the future economy of the area is significantly dependent upon the construction of a relief road.

For example, it does not dispute the fact that the economy of Weymouth & Portland has been booming ever since the Ministry of Defence finally withdrew in 1999. We know that it was booming in August 2000 because that was when Mr Brian Ellis - at the time Chairman of Weymouth & Portland Borough Council’s Economic Committee - told us so. To confirm his view, in the year 2000 unemployment in Weymouth & Portland had fallen from a peak of 8.5% in 1993 to a lowly 2.5%. Last year, unemployment was even lower at 2.1%.

The County Council was obviously in agreement with Mr Ellis’s assessment because a year later, in September 2001, it was looking to spend £50,000 on a relief road ‘Economic Impact Study’ and was asking potential consultants to explain the uncomfortable fact that, to quote: ‘the local area appears to be economically successful in spite of there being no uncongested road access’.

Potential consultants were also asked to consider the extent to which the road ‘would lessen the impact of any downturns or recessions in the local economy’. Perhaps you would agree that this request has a ring of desperation about it.

The uncomfortable truth for the Council is that Weymouth & Portland is not recognised by the region to be in need of regeneration – 35% of all English districts have higher deprivation and unemployment in the Borough at 2.1% is well below the United Kingdom’s 2.6. Clearly, the area is not suffering from labour market failure, which is the necessary condition required to justify 78 million pounds worth of transport intervention.

The 50,000 pounds eventually paid for a report by consultants SQW. The methodology, assumptions and conclusions of their report were severely criticised by the nationally recognised experts and advisers to the Government on the subject, consultants Steer Davies Gleave. Stung by this critique, the Council paid SQW a further £35,000 to respond to it. Unfortunately, the rebuttal provided further ammunition for an even more damaging critique from Steer Davies Gleave.

Steer Davies Gleave could find no evidence to justify SQW’s conclusion, in its first report, that in the 5 years following the opening of a relief road 6,000 jobs would be created in the Dorchester Weymouth Travel to Work Area, 4,700 dependent upon the road and 1,300 not. These numbers require to be compared with the current number of unemployed - 1,088, which represents an unemployment rate of just 1.6%. It is clear that if in the unlikely event 4,700 extra jobs were indeed to be created, most of them could only be taken up by substantial in-migration with all its accompanying pressures on housing, schools, roads, health services and the like.

I also wish to bring to your attention the unsubstantiated claim by the authors of Chapter 8, fresh on the seen MVA Consultancy Limited, that ‘improving access to Weymouth is a recognised important objective that will assist in the development of Portland Port’. This statement is in total contradiction with the conclusion on this specific issue arrived at by both SQW and Steer Davies Gleave that, if built, the Weymouth Relief Road would do nothing to advance the development of both Portland and Weymouth Ports.

Finally, on this issue, the second SQW report, put before the Inspector at the Public Inquiry into the West Dorset District Local Plan in April 2005, contained the following damning conclusion:

‘Although the 2001-based travel time and traffic flow estimates suggest that the current isolation of the Weymouth and Portland core area could be marginally reduced by the construction of the proposed relief road, the 2010 and 2025 estimates suggest that journey times could increase significantly as a result of an overall growth in traffic and congestion on the road network. This increase in traffic could negate the potential shorter term benefits of the proposed relief road and increase the core area's current isolation from the surrounding centres of employment and other facilities.’

I believe that quotation from a report by Dorset County Council’s own consultants, deserves your careful consideration.

It is clear that construction of a bypass of Upwey and Broadwey has been the County’s top priority transport project for many years.

The amount of time, effort and resources that have been devoted to the relief road are reflected in the fact that between April 1992 and March 2007 £7.31 million of Council Tax has been spent on attempts to progress the scheme. Much of this expenditure might be attributable to incompetence. How else can one explain the necessity for three major scheme bids – for a dual carriageway Brown Route in 1999, a single carriageway Brown Route in 2000 and finally an Orange Route in 2003, followed by thee planning applications for the Orange Route in 2005, 2006 and 2007?

Whilst the Council has been focussed on its top priority road scheme, targets, commitments and progress associated with most of its more sustainable transport activities have been suffering and little progress has been achieved.

It is clear that until either the Council is forced by circumstances beyond its control to abandon the relief road or it recognises the futility of continuing to put precious resources into what is probably now a lost cause, it will continue to give only lip-service to the non-road building measures required to sustainably improve transport throughout the County, including the Weymouth – Dorchester Corridor. Your Committee, Chairman, has the opportunity to help bring the Council to that recognition.

10) Ken Reed on behalf of the Cyclists’ Touring Club.

I am here as an active cyclist and a Weymouth resident. I speak on behalf of the Cyclists’ Touring Club of Great Britain, being the club’s Right to Ride Co-ordinator for Dorset. I am also the Weymouth and Portland representative for the Dorset Cyclists’ Network. We have well over 300 hundred local members and over 1300 members in Wessex. We recently wrote to all of them and only 4 support the relief road.
We are primarily a group which looks after our members’ interests. We are not anti-roads nor an environmental organisation.
We have had extensive consultations with the County Council staff with regard to this proposal. These were reported to our members at our Annual General Meeting and it has been agreed that we should oppose this scheme.
There are two main grounds:
The only work for cyclists funded in the current scheme is a cycle path beside the new bypass. Having to cycle near to a road carrying 30,000 vehicles a day is a very unpleasant prospect. Having to continue into both towns on the main roads, even if shared pavements are eventually provided, will effectively make cycling untenable.
The scheme will lead to an increase in traffic which will adversely affect our members’ enjoyment of the whole area, especially the quiet country lanes we currently enjoy.
Should you be minded to approve this bypass I urge you to make it a condition of your support that the following are funded by the scheme. Ideally this should be put in hand before the bypass is built as these and similar measures may make new road building unnecessary.
• measures to be put in place for reducing traffic on the parallel roads, i.e. Coombe Valley and Goulds Hill
• an integrated transport scheme for the area is put into place. This should include better cycle carriage on trains and buses.
• the construction of the planned Sustrans cycle route between Weymouth and Dorchester which is well away from the bypass route.
Our members, and I suspect the general public, are sceptical that proposals in the Local Transport Plan will ever be implemented unless they are funded from the scheme. Not to do these three things is similar to building a house with no services.
You may be surprised that a group of mainly fairly affluent cyclists are opposed to this bypass. New roads are a bit like motherhood and apple pie. How could anyone object, especially when our local media and even our MP put forward such a strong all be it a one sided case?
Well, cyclists and almost anyone else who thinks this through come to the same conclusion. Weymouth and Portland is on a peninsular. Most traffic is coming to and from the urban area. All that any new road can do is to move the congestion on to the next pinch point. In order to achieve this dubious benefit we are prepared to:
• do irreparable environmental damage to ancient woodland, the downs and rare and protected species.
• divide a community, there are few crossing points for pedestrians and cyclists and the noise and extra traffic generated will be unbearable for residents.
• it will be detrimental to our tourist based economy. People come to Weymouth specifically because it is not another Torquay or Bournemouth served by major roads. We are in danger of losing our core business by damaging the very things they come here to enjoy, i.e. our lovely environment and countryside.
• it is contrary to the Jurassic Coast Transport Strategy which is to persuade people out of their cars and onto foot, bicycle and public transport.
• The Olympic bid stated that the Olympics will be “Green” and no major roads will be built. There will inevitably be protests if this scheme is approved. These will be damaging both to the resort in the short and long terms and for the British Olympic movement.
• None of the other economic benefits identified for the scheme stand up to examination. The scheme will only save a vehicle an average of four minutes on peak time journeys between Weymouth and Dorchester. At non peak times there will be no saving at all.
• The alternatives have not even been tried, for example:

o improvements to the rail service,
o regular park and ride facilities into both towns,
o construction of a safe cycle route network,
o improvements to the bus services and, in particular, a proper transport interchange in Weymouth,
o improvements to pedestrian facilities and routes in both towns,
o providing a comprehensive school bus service to reduce parent car use,
o encourage major local employers, including local authorities and the health services, to implement transport policies which discourage car use.
Furthermore every effort seems to have been made to make Dorchester Road even worse and more unsafe. Councillors and road planners alike have gone out of their way to increase congestion. These include a proposal for dangerous cycle lanes where a safe alternative exists. These lanes if implemented will narrow the road and stop residents’ parking. There have also been frequent and apparently unplanned and inefficiently carried out road works. Finally, it seems inconceivable that with modern technology improvements could not be made at the Littlemoor traffic lights, the current main pinch point.
If you approve this scheme the Council is likely to have to contribute at least 10% of the spiralling cost. It will also have to continue to fund the cost of planning the now delayed project. Because of this our Council tax is bound to increase.
Thank you for allowing me to speak. I do admit that following other local consultations I came to this meeting wondering whether my views or indeed those of my members would be taken into account at all. I feel reassured by what is going on here today.
Please could I urge you to show further leadership now by refusing this planning application?
By doing this you will have the support a large proportion of thinking local people who love motherhood and apple pie but only when it makes sense. Nationally it will be seen as wise and sensible to stop the most damaging scheme proposed in the whole country.


11) Vincent Stops, sometime resident of Weymouth

I lived in Weymouth for 16 years and retain a property interest. I have been opposing this scheme for 16 years.
I would be honoured to speak for all those thousands of objectors from outside of Weymouth who are opposed to this road. It is, after all, a Local Highway Authority, Dorset County Council, that has chosen to promote a road scheme that cuts through nationally designated sites. It is entirely appropriate for those living outside Weymouth to take an interest.
I work as a transport policy officer in local government and chair a planning committee in one of the Olympic boroughs. An Olympics where every single visitor will arrive by public transport, cycle or on foot.
I wish to use my five minutes to shed some light on why, for the last 16 years, Dorset County Council has failed to have in place, at the same time, both statutory permission and funding for this scheme
16 years ago policies supported local authorities seeking to accommodate ever-growing levels of traffic. The then County Surveyor, Mr Hutchinson, proposed an over-the-top dual carriageway solution. This was in line with policy. However, policy was changing faster than Dorset could keep up.
In 1994 the Conservative Government turned policy on its head. Small packages of measures to improve public transport, cycling and walking became policy and have remained so. Government policy recognised it was not viable to attempt to build ourselves out of congestion. There is now talk across the entire political spectrum of using road pricing to restrain traffic growth.
Dorset has dressed up the scheme in a variety of ways, downsized it, tried to PFI it, changed its name. It even built a bus lane along the promenade to portray the scheme as part of a package! As the world of transport policy has moved on so the backwoodsmen of Dorset refuse to change.
In 1997 a Labour Government came to power and Michael Meacher became environment minister. He gave English Nature a remit to defend nationally designated sites and raised the protection of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. I was here in this hall at the public inquiry into the scheme and the issue of AONB protection was hardly mentioned.
To bring us up to date, you have an application with an objection from a statutory body. You have a devastating analysis and recommendation from the planning inspectorate that the scheme does not accord with policy. Jim Knight MP has claimed that this scheme is a priority for the South West Region. This is not the case. The South West Regional Assembly will never approve this scheme for funding as long as Natural England’s objection to it remains in place.
In 15 years, Dorset has spent £7.3 millions building (in Councillor Trevor Jones’ words) ‘castles in the sky’. Dorset and Weymouth has nothing to show for it save a bus lane along the beach. The development of alternatives has been so poor that there are not even bus timetables at stops along the Dorchester Road. There has been no serious consideration of policy. The only significant improvement in public transport to take place in recent years, with no thanks to Dorset County Council, is a proposed doubling of the frequency of rail service between Weymouth and London Waterloo as of December this year. This must have come as shock to Mr Knight who claimed that such an improvement in public transport would never happen.
In summary, this application does not accord with policy, nobody here today, including Jim Knight MP has been able to point to a planning policy that supports putting a road through nationally designated sites. There has been no genuine investigation nor implementation of alternatives.
Thank you.

12) Howard Thomas on behalf of Dorset Branch Campaign to Protect Rural England

We base our case against this application on the provisions of Planning Policy Statement 7 paragraph 22, which states:
‘Major developments should not take place in these designated areas (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks), except in exceptional circumstances.’
Our Objection is the same as that of the Statutory body Natural England. The need for the scheme is not proven against the above Policy Statement. Another solution to the traffic problems of the Dorchester Road, not involving a new road, is possible. Remember only the feasibility of such a solution is of importance. Only the fact that another solution is possible is sufficient not to proceed with major infrastructure in the AONB.
I ask you, at your forthcoming determination meeting, to scrutinize the report of your planning officers, on their opinion of the degree of commitment from the applicant in examining an alternative non-road-building alternative. Chapter 3 Alternative Solutions in the Environmental Statement, particularly the first pages from paras 3.1 to 3.37 that discuss non-road-building measures, represents in our view an insufficient examination of them. What you need to ask is ‘was this written by someone who was genuinely attempting to seek a non-road-building alternative?’ Particularly disappointing is that none has been implemented in the past, when an authority, committed to sustainable measures, would have done so, as elsewhere.
Several possibilities are not even mentioned, including using powers available under the Transport Act 2000.
You might ask ‘why was no measure proposed to discourage DCC employees using their cars to travel to County Hall and use the free parking provided at our expense?’ Also ‘why were no similar measures proposed for other public service employers such as WDDC or the NHS?’ ‘Why could those employees not be given free bus and train passes as inducement?’
You might also wonder ‘why is there no direct bus service from west of Weymouth to Dorchester or from the east except the hourly and inappropriately diverted 31 service, which is financed by the Government and which could be withdrawn at any time?’
‘Why is there no frequent electric train service extended to Dorchester West?’ ‘Why is there no new station at Tesco outside Dorchester and Morrisons outside Weymouth – ideal interchange points?’
If these and other questions find inadequate answers in Chapter 3 then you would be entitled to conclude that the PPS 7 has not been complied with; neither is there compliance with the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Regulations 1999 and the application should be refused.
This was the conclusion of the West Dorset Local Plan Inquiry Inspector when confronted with the same evidence. The Inspector agreed with us and we are confident that you will too. Thank you Chairman.

13 Derek Farwell, resident of Weymouth

I live in Weymouth and use the Dorchester Road several times a week to travel to Dorchester and beyond. Sometimes I use my car and sometimes the bus. I sometimes get stuck in traffic jams there and don't particularly like it when I do.

This is where I part company though, from those who say the solution is to build a new road through the middle of the Littlemoor estate and the tranquil Lorton Valley. There are other ways of reducing the traffic. A previous speaker described how he has suffered from being on the Dorchester Road close to increasing levels of traffic over the years. I sympathise with him and would also like to see the traffic there much reduced - but not by building a new road that will inflict similar hardships of noise and pollution on several hundred inhabitants on the Littlemoor estate. Those of us that are opposed to the new road are often portrayed as people who want to see the continuance of heavy traffic on the Dorchester Road. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But what are the alternative solutions?

Here, those of us opposed to the road are in some difficulty. Alternative proposals are, by their very nature, more complex than the glib "build a new road" answer that at first sight seems to offer the perfect solution to all traffic problems. There are many solutions that could be investigated and need to be tailored to the local conditions; geographical, social, etc. Another difficulty we have is that Dorset County Council have not been even-handed and have not put any real effort into exploring any possibilities other than a new road. As an instance of this, there is government money (from The Transport Innovation Fund) that councils can apply for to investigate local public transport solutions. Other nearby councils have received millions of pounds this way. As far as I'm aware DCC has never bothered to apply for one of these grants. So there has been no professional input from the Council that we can call on. What community is going to say 'no thank you' when it is offered a (free - at least to the council tax payer) bypass and no alternative.
So it is left to those of us who are not experts in the field to come up with alternatives. Here are some personal suggestions (realising, of course, that these are just starting points for further discussion).

One major cause of congestion on the Dorchester Road is the large amount of traffic (over 50% of the total) carrying workers of three public sector organisations in Dorchester (DCC, hospital and WDCC) who live in the Weymouth area. My (unscientific) observation is that some 90% of these vehicles are single occupancy. More sticks and carrots are needed to encourage people to share. Even better, the provision of free buses to various pick-up points in Weymouth would reduce the density of traffic by a considerable amount. There are several other causes of congestion on the Dorchester Road and each of these has it's own solution.

Something else that I believe needs investigating is making much more use of the railway track that already exists but is grossly underused. A scheme (proposed by Andy Gaunt recently) that I think has a lot to recommend it is to make the Weymouth to Dorchester section into a light railway or a tramway, with several extra halts being built, including one at the Wey Valley school (to help cut down another source of congestion), one at the new development currently being proposed for the New Look site (an additional source of traffic in the future), and one at Tesco's. There would be a new bus interchange at Weymouth rail station connecting to the surrounding area, and extra linking buses at the Dorchester end during peak hours for workplace travel. If the service is to be reasonably frequent it may be necessary to terminate some of the London trains at Dorchester. An additional bonus is that Weymouth station is one of the best situated in the country, being 5 mins walk from the sea-front and not much further from the centre of town. The Dorchester Road would then be much freer to carry essential traffic.

There are many more alternatives that have been successfully adopted elsewhere and it is time that DCC put a investigating these I'd like to come now to what in my view is the major argument against building the bypass. The overwhelming scientific consensus (from ththe latest IPCC report published Feb 2007 - summary at http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf) is that we are heading for a major crisis in the form of extra global warming caused by man-made CO2 emissions. Many other speakers have emphasised this point, and that we consequently need to cut down on these emissions. Implied in these arguments is that we have some choice and that it would be a "good thing" to cut down our emissions. My point is that we have left this so late that we now no longer have a choice. It is very likely that within a decade compulsory carbon/petrol rationing will start to be imposed, nationally.

Picture now what will happen soon after the bypass is built:There will be far fewer cars on the road; Dorchester Road will be much less congested; there will be queues of people waiting for buses and trains, which just won't be there in the quantity required. Worse, the money needed will have disappeared into building an unnecessary bypass. The bypass will be a complete white elephant and an embarrassment to DCC, and all who supported it, and a concrete monument to climate change denial.If, by some remote chance, the climate change scenario doesn't arrive as quickly as I predict, there is another lesser known scenario that could lead to much the same consequences for transport. It is known as Peak Oil. We are very close, globally, to using more oil than is being discovered i.e. we will have reached a peak in oil extraction. There is a group of experts, mainly ex-oil industry engineers, who believe this will happen within a decade (see, for example, http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php). This doesn't mean that we shall run out of oil but it is likely that the oil price will start rising rapidly at that point. Even the most optimistic forecast I have seen quoted for the peak oil date is around 2020 - not very far ahead in road-building terms!In the light of these considerations you will understand that I place no credibility on DCC projections of continued traffic growth until the year 2025.It would be far more sensible to prepare for these eventualities by putting all our resources now into a robust local transport system that will be able to serve our children and grandchildren, and not just our short term needs.