12.9.06: It's Official, the Link does little for Lancaster.
In a remarkable document, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, engineers and top traffic and transport managers from Lancashire County Council and Lancaster City Council had concluded, by 22nd December 2005, that the Heysham M6 Link Road was “unlikely to have a major impact (relief)” on Lancaster’s ring road. This acknowledgement was made just days after Lancashire County Council submitted its planning application for the road which boasted of the benefits for Lancaster.
The document is the meeting notes of a “Highways Workshop” hosted by Lancashire County Council, to consider the traffic implications for Lancaster of the Canal Corridor North retail project. The workshop group had identified that "non car access to the site would be key to providing sustainable development". The attendees were managers and transport and traffic specialists from Lancashire County Council and Lancaster City Council, together with consultants.
“Lancashire County Council and Lancaster City Council have been promoting the benefits of the Northern route for Lancaster, but in private their top experts obviously hold different opinions,” said David Gate, chair of Transport Solutions for Lancaster and Morecambe, the local transport campaign group. “They will have difficulty in convincing the Government that the Northern route represents value for money for the district after this revelation. Just imagine, they want £120 million from the Government to build this road, and it does not bring major relief to Lancaster’s traffic."
"If the Canal Corridor retail development goes ahead, with 30,000 sq metres of additional retailing space, experts predict another 10,000 car trips a day in the City Centre. There would be traffic chaos and the transport budget would have been blown on a road which, as they admit, does not do the business for Lancaster.”