UPDATE: September 30, 2019
Hello and welcome to the latest update on our fight against the Expressway. With your help, we’ve made brilliant progress recently, with lots of local communities and both AVDC and Bucks CC, showing their support, but we must not get complacent. There’s a lot more work to do, to ensure that the Government listens to us all and abandons these ridiculous and destructive plans. So as always, see below for updates on the fight, and news about how you can help. Thank you!
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What’s new (get more information here)
Political opposition to the proposed Ox-Cam Expressway
Both Aylesbury Vale District Council and Buckinghamshire County Council have now unanimously voted to oppose the Ox-Cam Expressway. They join Oxford City, South Oxfordshire District and Vale of White Horse District Councils in taking this position. This is fantastic news!
Disappointingly Cherwell District Council won’t debate this until routes are known, which misses the point!
Oxfordshire Growth Board Scrutiny Panel have also said the “Ox-Cam Expressway [is] incompatible with Zero Carbon aims.”
Daniel Zeichman (MP for Cambridge), Leyla Moran (MP for Oxford West & Abingdon) and Anneliese Dodds (MP for Oxford East) have all come out against the Ox-Cam Expressway too
We now need to keep the pressure up on other councils and all MPs along the corridor.
Oxon Growth Board Consultation
The Oxfordshire Growth Board has announced a review of how it operates. The review is open to councils, community groups and members of the public. You can provide take part in the survey here.
Buckinghamshire Council “Community Boards” consultation
Bucks “Shadow Authority” (prelude to the new unitary authority) is running a consultation on new Community Boards it wants to set up. Act fast, consultation ends 11.45pm, Monday 30th September
NEG activities
The NEG has taken the travelling pagoda to Haddenham Greener Living Autumn Fair and presented at both Launton and Oakley/Worminghall village meetings, with over over 100 attendees at each meeting
Very disappointingly Barry Wood, Leader of Cherwell District Council and Chair of the Arc Leaders Group, told those attending the Launton meeting that anyone concerned by NEG’s presentation “should go home and take some tablets”, that he doesn’t have a problem with campaign groups but thinks they should be “rooted in reality”!
This is not the time to be rude or flippant, but to inform and enable people to make up their own minds, something Councils and Highways England should have been doing, but haven’t done so far. Feel free to contact us to ask about our reference sources and our meeting with Highways England.
As for reality, we totally agree! The Office of National Statistic's average growth forecast for England's population is 16% by 2050. But Cllr Barry Wood wants you to believe that Oxon should grow by >100% and affected areas of Bucks by 87% by 2050. Shouldn't our Local Authority growth forecasts be "rooted in reality too"? And no mention at all from Cllr Barry Wood of what this would do to our environment, communities etc? More reality needed here please!
Stronger Together - NEG meets regularly with local groups to make our campaign stronger.
This group is growing with Buckinghamshire Expressway Action Group (BEAG), North Otmoor No Expressway Group and Chris Church from Friends of the Earth coming to join in our next meeting on 30th September.
Reminder
No route options have been published by Highways England or the government yet. Any routes we discuss in presentations are guesses based on information available now.
What’s next
Working on a programme of activities for schools and younger people to get involved in
Continue to update our noexpressway.org website, add news and drive traffic to NEG page on Facebook, and put up new signs as and when requested.
Fundraising – Please donate here!
Sincere thanks go to all those who’ve organised events and meetings for NEG to attend
In particular, in Launton – Jane Olds and Simon Turner, in Oakley/Worminghall – John Mole, Tracey Stakes, Vicky Everitt, Alex Griffiths and the rest of the team and in Haddenham - Deborah Lovatt of BEAG and Coral Simpson.
We urgently need your help.
Your donations are needed now, to help us run the campaign and pay for political consultants and other professional experts to bring this campaign to the attention of Westminster as well as local politicians.
No Expressway Group believes there is no need for an Oxford-Cambridge Expressway, nor the over-inflated housing targets associated with it, and we will actively campaign against it and support other organisations with the same objectives.
Our environment is a national asset which is critical for everyone’s health and well-being. We must not let it be destroyed.
Your donations help us to spread information about the Expressway, run and build support for the campaign:
£10 could pay for one roadside Correx poster
£15 could pay for one roadside poster on a wooden stake
£20 could pay for one A1 printed colour poster for our pagoda display
£35 could pay for 250 A5 printed leaflets for the campaign
£70 could pay for one pole and two panels for our travelling pagoda display
£150 could pay for one feather flag for our travelling pagoda
£180 could pay to run this website for one year
£300 could pay for a 3 minutes of an Expressway Story
£500 could pay for a 5 minutes of an Expressway Story
A greater or other amount could contribute to the cost of professional support for our campaign in general and in preparation for Planning Inspectorate hearings
Please note:
The No Expressway Group has a group bank account to which the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer are signatories. The group will publish accounts on noexpressway.org each year which will be audited by an accountant from outside the NEG group.
If any funds are left at the end of the campaign, these will be donated equally between RSPB and BBOWT.