From CPRE Peak District and South Yorkshire:

The government has given the green light to the A57 Link Roads (part of the so-called ‘Trans Pennine Upgrade Programme’). If built, this new roads project could become one of the most environmentally damaging ever constructed in Britain:

● The route (the so-called Mottram By-pass) cuts across the Manchester Green Belt  and will promote further ‘infill’ development around Mottram and Hollingworth. Plans for new housing there have already appeared.

● Its eastern end (on Mottram Moor) is a dagger aimed at the National Park which it must cross on its way to the M1: the park boundary is less than two miles east of the scheme now authorised. Existing plans aspire to a motorway-style dual carriageway defacing the natural beauty of Longdendale and on eastwards to the M1.

● The road will increase congestion, accidents and rat-running in Glossop. It will not civilise life in Tintwistle and Hollingworth, where villagers suffer lorries thundering past their doorsteps and rattling their windows; it will be worse.

● Although we are now living through a climate emergency, this monstrous new road will increase emissions of carbon dioxide by thousands of tons. But in response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations has called for carbon emissions to be cut immediately if the world is to escape catastrophe.

All this could be avoided with CPRE’s proposed ‘Low Carbon Travel’ plan to restrict heavy lorry traffic and improve bus journeys, walking and cycling, but our plan was rejected.

To combat this disastrous project the local branch of CPRE (Peak District and South Yorkshire) is taking the only possible course left— we are going to law.

We have filed our claim for judicial review with the High Court. Our case is that it is unlawful for the government to allow such road schemes (1) without assessing the cumulative effect of carbon emissions and (2) failing to consider alternatives which would not harm the green belt, the national park, or our climate.

The law costs money. We have instructed solicitors and barristers specialising in environmental law; they have generously agreed to fight the case and have given us a discount. Our initial target was £1,000 but this will have to be stretched to £5,000 to cover the legal advice we have already had. In the longer run we may need as much as £58,000 if the case proceeds to a full hearing.