Campaigners have lodged a High Court challenge over the Government’s decision to approve the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet scheme.
Transport Action Network (TAN) pointed out that the £1bn scheme is listed in the Government’s Growth Plan for accelerated delivery, but said it was ‘one of the highest carbon emitting schemes’ in the second Road Investment Strategy (RIS2).
The group added that with ‘spiralling construction costs’ the economic case for the scheme looks weak and its inclusion in the Growth Plan ‘appears odd’.
It said its legal case focuses on the ‘failure’ to assess climate impacts at a regional or local level and that it is also challenging the need for the road.
It is also challenging ‘the failure to implement existing environmental policy’. This is before any potential loosening of environmental protections and judicial review rights that is being suggested as part of the Growth Plan, the campaign group highlighted.
Director Chris Todd said: ‘The A428 is one of the biggest climate-busting schemes in the Government's roads programme. Yet the impact on regional and local carbon targets has been completely ignored. Similarly, before Liz Truss’s Government has reformed environmental protections we are seeing existing policy sidelined. It would seem that the attack on nature has already started.
‘The scheme represents a trebling of road capacity for much of its length, an expansion that is totally unwarranted. It will increase traffic on the surrounding road network, undermining the economy while driving up emissions.'
TAN said that figures submitted by National Highways to the planning examination for the scheme reveal that the total additional carbon emissions from construction and extra traffic totalled over 3.5 million tonnes, which makes it the third largest emitting of the 50 schemes in RIS2.
National Highways disputed TAN’s claim that the scheme was ‘part of the cancelled Oxford-Cambridge Expressway’, stating that it had always been a completely separate scheme.
The scheme’s project director, Lee Galloway, said: ‘We are working with the Department for Transport, which is responding to a claim for permission to seek a judicial review of the decision to grant a Development Consent Order for the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet improvements. The challenge is currently under consideration by the High Court, and we await the outcome.
‘We stand by our plans and remain committed to improving journeys for hundreds of thousands between Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge. Our proposals will improve safety, connect communities and deliver a huge economic boost to the region.’
