20.2.07: Carbon Derby: Link road a national front runner!

Lancashire County Council’s controversial Heysham M6 Link road has turned out to be a national leader, but not quite as the Council intended. It seems that the HGV road’s potential for emitting carbon into the atmosphere stands out nationally. It is one of the new road schemes that will most increase carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions - and that’s based on the Council’s own figures!

The facts came to light when national organisation Transport 2000 (1) wrote to Transport Solutions for Lancaster and Morecambe (TSLM), to congratulate us for the part that we played in bringing about the ‘call in’ of the scheme and the setting up of a Public Inquiry into the hastily conceived plans (Read letter here).

Transport 2000 pointed out that the Link stands out nationally as one of the proposed road schemes that will most increase carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. By the Council’s own figures, in the first year alone, 24,000 tonnes of additional CO2 would be pumped out into the atmosphere.

David Gate, Chair of TSLM, who received the letter, said: “When all national experts and politicians insist that we must cut emissions, it is breath-taking that County Council stubbornly continues with this controversial road, which will damage communities and the environment. LCC has not yet secured funding of £137 million of taxpayers’ money from the Government to build the destructive road. Given the massive increase in CO2 emissions and the loss of 173 acres of farmland in our Green Belt, for a road that won’t solve the district’s congestion problems, this does not look like a rational way to spend public funds.

“To put matters in context, Lancashire County Council intends to spend only £1.8 million on its own flagship environmental initiative, yet it would happily blow £137 million of the Government’s money on massively increasing CO2 emissions.”

(1) Transport 2000 is the independent national body concerned with sustainable transport. It looks for answers to transport problems and aims to reduce the environmental and social impact of transport by encouraging less use of cars and more use of public transport, walking and cycling.

See website www.transport2000.org.uk