Emily Heath has just read the County Council's report on the bypass, and gives her first impressions.
First Posted: 25 August 2004

I have just read the reports about the Heysham-M6 Link Road which will be discussed at a meeting of Lancaster City Council on Tues 31st Aug at 2pm at Morecambe Town Hall, and then by the cabinet of Lancashire County Council on Thurs 2 Sept, 10.30am at County Hall. The first meeting is open to the public to observe. I'm not sure about the County meeting, but you can watch it via a live webcast (see http://www.lancashire.ukcouncil.net/).

The good news is that the Western Bypass is surely dead! (although I hesitate to say this because we've thought this before ....)

The environmental impact assessments show that the Western Route could have significant impacts on the European Protected Areas of the Lune Esturay, and therefore the precautionary principle should be applied. If the Western Route were chosen, a call-in inquiry would be inevitable, and prospects of success are estimated to be 0-10%.

The County has sought legal advice and the killer phrase is:

'Leading Counsel's conclusion is to regard a choice of the Western Route, "not only as extraordinary but one that was perverse on the part of the County Council" and that such a decision would be "lacking in logic and one that no reasonable planning authority properly directing itself could come to".

However, the bad news is that:

'the Northern Route has significantly less problems and does not appear to be in breach of the legislative requirements relating to conservation issues. Whilst the prospect of it being called in or an inquiry taking place cannot be ruled out, the prospects of success are [in Counsel's view] "radically different" '.

So it looks like the Northern Route will be the one we'll have to fight now. Here's some further info about the Northern Route, extracted from the reports:

The proposal is for a 2-lane dual carriageway road approximately 5km long, between the eastern end of the A683 and the M6 J34. It includes a bridge crossing of the Lune to the west of the M6, complete rebuilding of J34 (to current safety standards), connections and alterations to various other roads, AND a new bridge across the Lune from Morecambe Road/Scale Hall Lane junction to the Lunesdide Industrial Estate. This bridge was not included in the 2001 public consultation.

The reports talk about an opening date of 2010, but I doubt whether that is realistically possible (?).

Adverse impacts include:

COST - now estimated at 92M (2004 prices - compare to 62.1M in 2000!). This breaks down as 66M for northern bypass, 19M for new J34, 7M for new bridge to Luneside. The big increase is partly due to the introduction of an Aggregate Tax. Obviously the eventual cost (in 2010?) would be even higher LAND TAKE - the footprint of the road covers 70 Ha of farmland.

DWELLINGS - 1-3 would need to be acquired for demolition, and a further 200 dwellings are within 100m of the new road and could therefore suffer increased noise, vibrations, air pollution etc.

BIOLOGICAL HERITAGE SITES - encroaches on River Lune BHS twice and Lancaster canal BHS once, and passes close to Long Bank Wood BHS and Foundry Lane Verges BHS. However, impacts are not thought to be very significant.

WIDER LANDSCAPE - major impact. Possible effects on species with wide ranges such as birds, bats, otters - road kill, habitat severance, disturbance.

HEDGEROWS - major impact. Destruction of 94 hedgerows totally 11 km in length. 87% of these are supposed to be protected by hedgerow regulations. Hedgerows are key habitats, provide food, hibernation & breeding sites and
navigation routes for small birds and mammals, and support a wide variety of invertebrates.

VETERAN TREES - major impact, can't be mitigated. A valuable resource throughout the northern route, though total number affected (by felling, changes to drainage and root damage) not known yet.

MARSHY GRASSLAND - moderate impact. Areas supporting nationally and regionally important fungi will be destroyed.

IMPROVED GRASSLAND - moderate impact. Species-poor, but important for some Biodiversity Action Plan bird species (e.g. lapwing, skylark).

INDUCED DEVELOPMENT - presence of road may encourage future pressure for development along the route.

SALT AYRE SPORTS FIELDS - the road would cut through this, necessitating 'remodelling of the sports pitches and cycle track'

Alleged benefits include:

TRAFFIC LEVELS - reductions in City Centre of between 1/6 and 1/4 (but some roads would increase - not least the new road itself which is forecast to have an Annual Average Daily Flow of 33,700 - 39,500 in 2010. This is close to the maximum optimal capacity for a dual carriageway (39,000), but the reports are curiously silent on the issue of how long it would take for the new bypass to become congested, and there is no discussion at all (that I could see) of induced traffic.

TRAVEL TIMES - reduced by around half (typically something like 10 minutes compared to 20 minutes) from locations on the peninsula to the motorway junctions. Of course these are only travel times by car - there is no consideration of journey times by foot/bike/bus. And presumably these time savings will reduce as more and more people travel by car, encouraged by the extra road space. Traffic levels are currently growing by about 1.2% per year. If my back-of-the envelope calculation is correct, this means that if the Northern route reduces traffic on some roads by 1/6 when it opens (2010?) we will only notice a reduction of 1/12 compared to today because of the projected traffic growth of around 10% between now and 2010. It would bring traffic levels is the City Centre back down to mid-late 1990s levels (when people were already clamouring for a bypass!). So it certainly won't transform the city centre into a nice quiet fragrant place - it will hardly make any difference apart from a big hole in the treasury and a scar on the landscape.

ROAD CASUALTIES - reduction of 4 fatal/serious and 25 slight casualties per year.

BENEFIT-TO-COST RATIO - estimated at 5.7 (not including casualties). I am deeply sceptical about this and would like to know more about how it is calculated - there is not much info in the reports although strangely the cost used is 79M not 92M (adjusted to 1998 levels). Does anyone know what happened to the New Approach To Appraisal (NATA)? Last time we went through a public inquiry about the bypass, I understood that Cost Benefit Analyses (COBA) were being phased out as too crude, and that big transport projects would have to be assessed on other criteria in future - Access, Integration, Safety, Economy and Environment. There is no mention of this at all in the reports - is this another Labour Government promise that has been quietly ditched in pursuit of the usual economic growth crap?

As usual there is no consideration anywhere in these reports of any other (non-road building) ways of reducing traffic/improving access locally. Also nothing at all about impacts on CO2 emissions.

There is more info about the history of the Heysham-M6 link road on the Lancaster & District Green Party website at: http://www.lancastergreens.nshc.co.uk/bypass.htm

The bypass was defeated in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 2000 - let's do all we can to add 2004 to the list!

Emily

Emily Heath brings readers the latest on this sorry tale of the road plan that just won't go away...
First Posted: 18 October 2002 Updated: 30 January 2004

In late 2001, the County Council decided to spend another £700,000 on a comparative environmental impact assessment of both the proposed northern and western bypass routes, including an analysis of impacts on the Lune estuary. An additional bridge over the river Lune, linking Luneside with Morecambe Road in the vicinity of the Salt Ayre sports centre, is being investigated as part of the northern route option (cynics may say this is to make the northern route look more damaging and expensive - i.e. more similar to the western route!). There has been no public consultation whatsoever on this bridge, and it will have to be subject to a public inquiry if the County decide to run with it.

A 12-month ecological survey was commissioned to begin in September 2002. The County will make a final decision on which route to back when the results of this survey are known (after September 2003).

The methodology of the Environmental Assessment is detailed in Volume 11 of the Department of Transport's Design Manual for Roads and Bridges. There will be 12 areas of investigation: ecology and nature conservation, cultural heritage, landscape, land use, air quality, traffic noise and vibrations, geology and soils, water quality and drainage, disruption due to construction, policies and plans, effects on pedestrians/cyclists/equestrians and communities, effects on vehicle travellers. Impacts to be considered could be direct, indirect or cumulative, short-, medium- or long-term, permanent, temporary or reversible, positive or negative, and major, moderate or minor.

A separate economic case will also be put together by the City and County Councils.

These assessments will not produce "an answer" as to which road is best - just a huge range of pros and cons to be weighed up (or ignored) by County cabinet members and Government officials.

In the summer of 2002 Geraldine Smith MP met with Corrillion PLC to discuss Private Finance Initiatives (PFI). The County has also been investigating PFI options and intends to move forward with this when a route choice is made. They have admitted that this is a difficult process because private sector involvement requires the building and operation of a road to be done in such a way as to obtain a return for the private sector (interpret this as you like - road tolls? opening up of development land along the route? cheapest possible materials and labour? short cuts on impact mitigation?).

In October 2002 a survey of traffic flows on all main roads that would be affected by a bypass is was undertaken by the County Council.

The City Council decided in 2002 to adopt an interim Local Plan, leaving aside a decision on the two most controversial planning issues in the District - Whinney Carr and the Heysham-M6 Link Road. But they'll need to finalise the Local Plan before the County Council resubmits a bid for funding for the road. I'm not sure whether yet another public inquiry would happen at that stage.

In July 2003, on the same day the Labour Government has announced a massive £6 billion road building programme -- the biggest in a decade -- local Tories renewed calls for an M6 link to Heysham port, calling on the Council to make it a "priority". (Full story)

In January 2004, the spectre of a Northern Bypass was again raised by Lancaster resident James Seddon, who argues strongly against those plans here.

So where does all this leave us?

Well, even if the Government approves a bypass in principle, the City and County Councils will face further problems such as obtaining planning permission for the road (the planning application will almost certainly be called in by the Secretary of State for further scrutiny), compulsory purchase orders for the many farms along the route, raising private finance and dealing with hoards of road protestors!

After all this, it is very unlikely that a bypass will be built before 2010. Meanwhile, traffic grows year on year as more and more local people make short journeys by car, and blame everyone else (Critical Mass, lorries, schools, buses, pedestrians trying to cross the road, utility companies) for the congestion.

What a great world we live in.