Dear Sir/Madam
Stockport Council has, against all logic, voted in favour of the A6 to
Manchester Airport ‘Relief’ Road, yet Mark Hunter MP is still not happy. He’s
trying to force Cheshire East Council to make a hasty decision on the project,
when they are quite rightly taking time to consider all the elements. That
includes the fact that the road would break the law on two counts. It would
destroy ancient woodland, which has legal protection, and increase air
pollution, which is against EU legislation. It is unbelievable that anyone would
vote in favour of such a scheme. The SEMMMS team has acknowledged that the road
cannot be built with the projected 30% increase in traffic at Disley. To reduce
this to 15% (still illegal) they have devised an ingenious solution. They’ll
restrict the speed limit on the A6 to 30mph. It’s already 30mph for much of its
length.
There are some residents who are hoping this
road will move traffic from their front door to someone else’s; how neighbourly.
One such is Councillor Iain Roberts, who’s now protesting against plans to build
1800 new homes at Handforth because of the extra traffic this will generate. You
couldn’t make it up!
I see the spectre of an extension
of the A555 up to the M60 has returned, so motorway congestion can be eased and
traffic taken instead through valuable greenbelt and flood plains. It’s worth
mentioning here that the proposed widening of the M60 was abandoned by the
Highways Agency because of the effect on air quality. That pollution will
instead be diverted to the countryside, in order to facilitate the massive
expansion of Manchester Airport.
We also need to
address two ‘facts’ that keep cropping up. 1) This road has been planned since
the 1930s. Yes, and there’s a very good reason it hasn’t been built – it creates
many more problems than it solves. Thank goodness we have learned much since
then; many things seemed like a good idea in the ’30s – smoking, leaded petrol,
etc. 2) This road will bring employment. I’ve yet to see evidence of long-term,
full-time jobs actually created, not just moved.
The
case for the road is crumbling by the day. Even if our local politicians are too
short-sighted to accept it’s not an appropriate, sustainable proposition, it
will surely fail at public enquiry.
Yours
faithfully
Kim Barrett
Poynton
PAULA
