Ambridge in Danger. Road Threat Gets Real.

CPRE and the Campaign for Better Transport have been trying for some time to rally opposition to what the Government boasts is the largest road-building programme for fifty years. It has been hard to build the campaign because the prospect of future new roads, probably somewhere else, can seem rather abstract. Now, however, the threat is very real. Ambridge is in danger, and for many people, it does not get more real than that.

 

You can listen to recent episodes of the Archers online, but the basic plot is that a new road has been proposed to link Borchester and Hollerton (if you do not know where they are, you need to buy a better map). Of three possible routes, one goes through Penny Hasset, an announcement that provoked disgraceful Nimbyish cheers at a public meeting in Ambridge village hall. (I now suspect that the Mrs Penny Hasset who wrote to me asking CPRE to campaign against the road may not be a real person.)

 

Route B, however, goes right through David and Ruth Archer’s farm, Brookfield. David’s mother, the saintly Jill, is particularly upset. ‘Just think, you might have cars and lorries thundering by here soon… It’s all so lovely at this time of year – cow parsley, red campion, and later on it’s full of willow herb… And now, it may not be there for much longer… If you believe that terrible man, the new road would go right through the middle of it, the whole path would be bulldozed and covered in tarmac.’

 

Later she says: ‘It’s not just me being a NIMBY is it?… For me it goes deeper. If the road gets built here, some things will be lost forever. Little things, but very precious to me…. Like the path where I picked those flowers, it’s nothing special, but it hasn’t changed since I first came here. For all we know it’s been the same for the last 500 years, maybe even longer… Once it’s gone that’s it, it’s gone for ever….It’s easy to build a new road, all you need is money. But no one can replace a piece of the landscape that’s been there for centuries.’

 

Village busybody Linda Snell, clearly not a CPRE member, is organising the campaign: ‘I’m not one to sit idly by while faceless bureaucrats wreak havoc with our precious countryside as if it was their own little sandbox to play games with. We must all stand up for the peaceful hills and meadows of South Borsetshire…’

 

At the village hall meeting, the road is justified on the grounds that it will help business, ease congestion and improve access to the motorway (businesspeople will be able to get to the traffic jam on the motorway quicker). The development company Borsetshire Land (hiss) looks set to benefit. As pantomime villain Matt Crawford says, ‘if it goes ahead it could lead to some tasty development opportunities… it could be the start of a mini-gold rush…’ And Brian Aldridge, always one to see a business opportunity, is keeping well away from the growing campaign.

 

The proposed road does not appear to be in the local plan, and I suspect it is the brainchild of the Borsetshire Local Economic Partnership (yes, a shadowy body; you would be forgiven for not having heard of it). It is probably a detail in its Strategic Economic Plan. The whole thing is a mess, and we have offered to send CPRE’s transport campaigner, Ralph Smyth to Ambridge to help the campaign. He comes from the county and knows the area well. He will urge the villagers to come up with plausible alternatives to the new road – not just favouring options A and C over option B- and to use CPRE’s Transport Toolkit.

 

But even with Ralph’s help, the story is likely to run and run. Reading the Archers Facebook page (not a phrase I ever expected to write) it is clear that it has struck a chord with listeners. There are a couple of pro-roads comments (including one suggesting that the tarmac should go over Peggy Archer) but overwhelmingly the sense is of distress about developments happening across the country, and of helplessness.

 

–        ‘Looks like The Archers has touched a nerve with listeners re planning. Pretty sure this is one of the reasons there has been such turmoil in our recent elections. We are promised local decision making re planning – only to see it ignored in practice.’

 

–        ‘Despite being a lorry driver I agree. We destroy too much with roads, we don’t need any more.’

 

–        ‘All a bit close to home for me. 250 acres of Devon countryside under threat.’

 

–        ‘And it’s happening in reality all over the country. Will they be able to stop the road? Because if they do then it’ll be a miracle.’

 

–        ‘My local council is planning to build a road across the rugby fields right next to the lovely river and canal walks and the best children’s park in town despite a protest group being set up, so I can already tell this storyline is going to make my blood boil!’

 

–        ‘Been through all this where I live for last five years and lost the fight. Not sure I want to go through it all again…’

 

–        ‘They are planning to put the new M11 junction 7a link road right through Old Harlow. We will be marooned. This on top of the 1200 new houses on the land 5 minutes away, and also putting the football field under houses too.’

 

–        ‘cf: Twyford, Hampshire. Now a gash on the once beautiful downland.’

 

–        ‘Many people have rural places they love. They may not visit every day but it’s devastating when that area is ruined by development…. It doesn’t just change the landscape but the sounds & feel is destroyed. Not to mention the effect on wildlife etc. We must protect our beautiful  countryside.’

 

CPRE is certainly not against all development. The country has a rising population and people’s needs always change. Developments will take place which upset people and damage the environment. That is sad, but it is not necessarily unjustifiable or undemocratic (see my previous blog). But what is significant now is the widespread sense that development is out of hand, that it is happening fast, everywhere; either unplanned or planned by bodies that seem remote, opaque, and unaccountable.

 

I hate to see any beautiful stretch of countryside ruined by an unnecessary new road, but if it has to happen anywhere, let it be in Ambridge. Then we might be to get people to take the threat of the coming road-building programme seriously. It really is real.