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Twyford - a call for relief
00:00 16 Jun 1994
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Sir; I would like to take issue with ICE President Stuart Mustow in
using Twyford Down (incidentally in Hampshire) as an example of a
scheme that may not have gone ahead if contractors had had an
ethical committee to speak out on projects which could be 'Damaging
to Society.'
There have been no more blatant 'Damage to Society' than that caused by the lack of, and delay to, the Winchester by-pass relief road, ie the M3 extension over Twyford Down.
This scheme has been delayed for over ten years by environmental protesters using every legal (and some illegal) method in the book.
During that whole time probably no more than a hundred people have made use of Twyford Down for recreational purposes. Many more will have visited nearby St. Catherines Hill Fort whose outlook will be immeasurably improved by the removal of a thundering dual carriageway at its foot and as its access road.
However when the M3 extension is complete many more local people than the protesters could muster from the whole country will breath a huge sigh of relief.
They will include the many drivers who are, every day, stuck in the 3-5 miles of rush hour near-stationary traffic (incidentally never shown in media reports of protests) or negotiating the narrow, twisty, old fashioned dual carriageway where to pass an articulated lorry is a nerve wracking experience.
Their health is currently adversely affected by such stressful driving and they are involved in many accidents as a result, some ten of which have proved fatal over the period that the relief road has been delayed, thus making the existing road the second most dangerous in England.
The families of all the delayed/frustrated drivers will also have a better quality of life having longer with their loved ones who will be in better mental and physical health as a result of using the stress free new road.
However the major recipients of relief will be the many people who live in the surrounding villages used as 'rat runs' by motorists every day in order to try and avoid the jams. Their villages will become quieter and less stressful, their environment will become better. Not only will fewer pollutants be generated by 'rat runners' but the pall over the whole area generated by the stationary and slow moving traffic on the old road will disappear.
All these people are at present members of a society that is being badly damaged by the lack of a relief road!
The protesters, and many others in the media, talk of 'The Motor Car' causing environmental damage as if it were impersonal, forgetting that for every car there are responsible human beings, one or two on average per car, whose lives can be immeasurably enriched by road improvements which fairly balance the environmental arguments.
The protesters, and Stuart Mustow, would no doubt argue that an 'Integrated Transport Policy' would remove the need for many of the car occupants to use the existing road. However, even if huge amounts of capital were to be ploughed into the bus and train networks it is highly likely that for me, and most of the other car users of the Winchester by-pass, it would still take much longer to get to their destinations using such transport and this is a major disincentive to leave their cars.
Even if it were a solution it would take many years to come to fruition and in the meantime the suffering of the drivers and villagers would go on.
On the 1" Ordnance Survey map there are, within a ten mile radius of Twyford Down, some 38 references to 'Downs' and indeed within a 5 mile radius there are 6 fully fledged chalk 'Downs' where no doubt the plants and animals, that thrive at Twyford, are, or could be, happily growing.
Hence when people like Stuart Mustow asks 'What is right for society?' he should consider whether, on balance, more peoples lives would be enriched by the retention of a small piece of greensward, amongst millions of acres, or by the construction of a relief road that is badly overdue!
AD Chapman OBE
CAA Project
Swanwick
Southampton
There have been no more blatant 'Damage to Society' than that caused by the lack of, and delay to, the Winchester by-pass relief road, ie the M3 extension over Twyford Down.
This scheme has been delayed for over ten years by environmental protesters using every legal (and some illegal) method in the book.
During that whole time probably no more than a hundred people have made use of Twyford Down for recreational purposes. Many more will have visited nearby St. Catherines Hill Fort whose outlook will be immeasurably improved by the removal of a thundering dual carriageway at its foot and as its access road.
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However when the M3 extension is complete many more local people than the protesters could muster from the whole country will breath a huge sigh of relief.
They will include the many drivers who are, every day, stuck in the 3-5 miles of rush hour near-stationary traffic (incidentally never shown in media reports of protests) or negotiating the narrow, twisty, old fashioned dual carriageway where to pass an articulated lorry is a nerve wracking experience.
Their health is currently adversely affected by such stressful driving and they are involved in many accidents as a result, some ten of which have proved fatal over the period that the relief road has been delayed, thus making the existing road the second most dangerous in England.
The families of all the delayed/frustrated drivers will also have a better quality of life having longer with their loved ones who will be in better mental and physical health as a result of using the stress free new road.
However the major recipients of relief will be the many people who live in the surrounding villages used as 'rat runs' by motorists every day in order to try and avoid the jams. Their villages will become quieter and less stressful, their environment will become better. Not only will fewer pollutants be generated by 'rat runners' but the pall over the whole area generated by the stationary and slow moving traffic on the old road will disappear.
All these people are at present members of a society that is being badly damaged by the lack of a relief road!
The protesters, and many others in the media, talk of 'The Motor Car' causing environmental damage as if it were impersonal, forgetting that for every car there are responsible human beings, one or two on average per car, whose lives can be immeasurably enriched by road improvements which fairly balance the environmental arguments.
The protesters, and Stuart Mustow, would no doubt argue that an 'Integrated Transport Policy' would remove the need for many of the car occupants to use the existing road. However, even if huge amounts of capital were to be ploughed into the bus and train networks it is highly likely that for me, and most of the other car users of the Winchester by-pass, it would still take much longer to get to their destinations using such transport and this is a major disincentive to leave their cars.
Even if it were a solution it would take many years to come to fruition and in the meantime the suffering of the drivers and villagers would go on.
On the 1" Ordnance Survey map there are, within a ten mile radius of Twyford Down, some 38 references to 'Downs' and indeed within a 5 mile radius there are 6 fully fledged chalk 'Downs' where no doubt the plants and animals, that thrive at Twyford, are, or could be, happily growing.
Hence when people like Stuart Mustow asks 'What is right for society?' he should consider whether, on balance, more peoples lives would be enriched by the retention of a small piece of greensward, amongst millions of acres, or by the construction of a relief road that is badly overdue!
AD Chapman OBE
CAA Project
Swanwick
Southampton
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