NEWS: BBC News March 5, 2020
Government delays Budget infrastructure plan
BBC News reports that “The long-awaited National Infrastructure Strategy is to be further delayed, and not released next week as expected. The detailed 30-year plan was to be published "alongside" the Budget, the government said at the Queen's Speech in December.”
So when exactly will the government actually make a formal statement about the status of the Ox-Cam Expressway or what’s happened to the priority review that was promised? People living across the Arc deserve to be told what’s happening! It was only on 12th February that Boris Johnson responded to Daniel Zeichner’ MP’s question about whether he could confirm the Expressway has been cancelled in PMQ’s by asking him to be patient and that he would learn more in the budget. But now it looks as though we will have to wait even longer.
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The BBC report continues “Three weeks ago, then chancellor Sajid Javid confirmed the timetable. The strategy is seen as crucial to the government's plan to "level up" regional disparities.
“The delay will allow the new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to refocus the strategy, to reflect potentially larger resources available, and to incorporate the challenge of achieving "net zero" carbon emissions over the same 30-year timescale.
“After the recent High Court ruling over Heathrow, which found expansion plans had failed to adequately account for policies on climate change, some experts say the government needs to look again at the impact of environmental policy within the provision of infrastructure. There has also been a debate about whether housing should be part of the plan.
“The strategy is also the government's formal response to a now two-year-old National Infrastructure Assessment, which was the product of an impartial commission set up when David Cameron was prime minister. It should have been published last autumn.
“Publication of the National Infrastructure Strategy should now be expected before May, sources have suggested to the BBC.”
You can read the full BBC article here.
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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.
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