Tiff Needell's column

Tiff explains why the anti-roads brigade have got it wrong about bypasses.

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16th January 2008

It’s a question that I, and many motorists across the UK, ask on a regular basis: “When are they going to build that b****y bypass?” When I moved to Petersfield, Hampshire, in 1990, I had two regular routes to take me to work: the A3 to London and the A34 to Birmingham. Each had one interruption to a continuous dual-carriageway – Hindhead and Newbury respectively. Both had bypasses planned for completion by the end of last century, but only the Newbury one made it.


	Sitting in jams pumping out CO2 must be a crime, so surely the anti-bypass brigade has to be responsible for accelerating global warming?

The residents of Hindhead were left to choke on clogged traffic – a resounding victory for the anti-new roads brigade. The power these minority lobbyist groups have over our lives is depressing in the extreme. They seem to be allowed to preach their twisted statistics at will. I was cruising down the free-flowing Newbury bypass recently when a member of one of these organisations was being interviewed on the radio. Absurdly, she was spouting on about how this road has already become a ‘car park’ and any more such routes would only have the same effect! From where I was sitting (at 70mph!), nothing could have been further from the truth.

In the interview there was no mention that even though traffic grew by 84 per cent from 1980 to 2006, road building has virtually ground to a halt. It’s been strangled by protests, the comfort of the crested newt and ever-rising costs – mainly due to extra planning and huge security. The aim of the ‘antis’ is to drive us to public transport. But when I tried that recently – having forked out £43.40 for the privilege – I spent the train journey from Winchester to Waterloo sitting on the floor in my best suit!

Well I’m sorry, but the reason for the rise in traffic is simple: We want to travel by car. So it’s about time the Government accepts this and gets rid of the unnecessary bottlenecks that plague our lives. Near where I now live, the Stonehenge bypass farce is the latest project to grind to a halt, guaranteeing years of misery for thousands of motorists.

Imagine it’s summer and the Cornish Riviera beckons. Off down the M3 you go, on to the A303 revelling in the freedom of the Andover bypass. But then the world stops at Stonehenge. If you have ever been there, the solution is blindingly simple – just built a second two-lane road south of the existing one and you’ve got a dual carriageway. But no, we can’t have that, can we?

You see, the ‘antis’ want a £550million tunnel to ‘protect’ the site, which the Government says it can’t afford. Yet my scheme would cost a fraction of that and continue to let everyone get to see a few old stones in a field without even having to get out of their cars!

Anyway, to get to the point, I now have the answer that could get road building back on track. You see the antis’ latest weapon is their wondrous, self-righteous use of CO2 as the greatest evil known to man – even if no one is actually 100 per cent certain cars are causing global warming.

Not happy enough in simply trying to force us all into horrible little electric-powered plastic boxes that couldn’t break a speed limit if they tried, the antis are now using the CO2 scam to demand much more strictly enforced motorway speed limits. Every ounce of carbon dioxide that can be saved is apparently vital for our planet. Surely that means if we are all made to slow down, we must also make every effort to keep going?

You see, sitting in jams pumping out CO2 must be a hideous crime. So it follows that if what we are being told is true, anyone delaying the building of bypasses has to be responsible for accelerating the onset of global warming. I wonder what the antis have to say about this?