PRESS RELEASE: Campaigners tell government to scrap the Oxford to Cambridge Expressway
Press Release
For immediate release
CAMPAIGNERS TELL GOVERNMENT TO SCRAP THE OXFORD TO CAMBRIDGE EXPRESSWAY
On February 26th the No Expressway Group (NEG) took their campaign to the heart of Westminster, delivering petitions with nearly 15,000 signatures to Downing Street and meeting with MPs and Peers to discuss why the government must cancel the Oxford to Cambridge Expressway and over-inflated target of one million houses.
NEG campaigners walked from Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament to deliver petitions demanding government scrap the Ox-Cam Expressway and vast housing target for the Ox-Cam Arc. The campaigners carried a banner, signs and lanterns of endangered birds at threat from the Ox-Cam Expressway and housing plans.
NEG also held a drop-in event in Parliament where members of NEG and other experts, including senior figures from CPRE, met with MPs and Peers to discuss the campaign and very real threat to our environment and communities of the proposed scheme. Conversations centred on Transport, Housing, Environment and Democracy.
This event was hosted by Layla Moran (Lib Dem, Oxford West & Abingdon), Greg Smith (Conservative, Buckingham) and Daniel Zeichner (Labour, Cambridge).
NEG spokesperson Olivia Field said ‘Our campaigning day in Westminster was a huge success. We met with a number of MPs from across the Arc and walked our petition past Parliament to Downing Street. The Prime Minister and all MPs can be in no doubt whatsoever that this proposed Expressway is not needed and not wanted. Our events have been featured in broadcast media across the Arc, pushing the issue up the political and media agenda.’
Ms Field continues ‘this has been a fantastic day with cross-party and cross-Arc support for our campaign showing that this is not about party politics, and it’s not about being NIMBYs. Instead it’s about protecting our environment, which is a national asset and must be protected for all our sakes. It’s about not ripping through communities with a massive new road that’s not needed and has a staggeringly weak business case and would do untold damage to our health and wellbeing. Our campaign is also about building houses at an appropriate level to support what’s actually needed locally, rather than to support the idea that growth can go on forever unhindered.’
Ms Field also said ‘our event yesterday was a challenge to the government to do what they said they would do, to make the Environment a priority in the budget, to ‘level up’ infrastructure investment across the country and to do all it can to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Build the East West Railway. Scrap the Expressway. There’s even more reason to scrap the Expressway with the Appeals Court ruling today on the third runway at Heathrow.’
Attached: pictures from NEG’s event
Ends
For further information please contact the press office on
Melissa Wright
07811 167190
NOTES TO THE EDITOR
The Oxford to Cambridge Expressway scheme is based on the idea of opening-up the countryside for development, including an aspirational target of one million new houses across the Ox-Cam Arc by 2050. The National Infrastructure Commission’s 5th Studio Report shows a split by both region and type of housing across the Arc. The target includes ‘unlocked’ homes enabled by the Expressway, London commuter homes and those already in Local Authority plans. We agree more housing is needed, but not increases in housing stock for Oxfordshire >100% by 2050, affected parts of Buckinghamshire by 66%, of Northamptonshire by 74% and of Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire by 81%. These growth rates are vastly greater than the Office of National Statistics predicted average 16% population increase in England by 2050. The impact of this on our environment, pollution and infrastructure should not be underestimated! All those homes need infrastructure: schools, clinics, hospitals, water and electricity supplies, waste and sewage disposal etc. For example, one form entry primary school is required for every 800 new houses. That’s 1,250 such schools across the Arc for those one million new houses by 2050. Developers make only minimal contributions to the real cost of infrastructure, which is ultimately borne by the Government, i.e. by tax- and rate-payers.
England has destroyed 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s and more ancient woodlands in the forty years after WWII than in the previous 400 years. How much more destruction can our environment take without catastrophic declines in our life support systems?
The impact of “community severance” of roads through existing communities under threat has been a huge omission in the analysis by Highways England (HE) of the Ox-Cam Expressway. HE identified that any route in the preferred corridor in the Woburn Sands area “would likely result in significant adverse effects caused by community severance and loss of amenity for local communities.” Its own assessment criteria recognises that ‘severance’ is in the most significant category of constraint that has an impact on decision making, while admitting that the guidance behind the criteria, from 1993, is “somewhat dated”. HE should update its approach to calculating the impact of “community severance” to include up-to-date, best-practice research such as that conducted by University College London.
About:
The No Expressway Group (NEG) was established to raise awareness of the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway across the Arc. We are not affiliated with any political party and are run on a not-for-profit basis. We receive donations from our individual supporters but no funds from any group with commercial or other interests in the Arc proposals. In the last 12 months NEG has given talks and made presentations to villages across the Arc, from Sunningwell, West of Oxford, to Cambridge. We have not found a single community in favour of the Arc proposals.
The NO EXPRESSWAY GROUP believes that 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 the many other organisations with the same objectives.
Our environment is a national asset which should be protected for all us, our health and well-being. This is a national and not just a local issue and we will continue to strive to educate people about the threats to our countryside posed by the planned Expressway and its associated housing and development. We will fight to protect our countryside and its wildlife for the health and enjoyment of all future generations.