The Peak District Park Authority is officially objecting to a
planned bypass which would cut through 1.3km of the National Park
threatening areas of sensitive moorland. What's more, if you want to
lodge your own objection to the project, you have until this
Friday, 5 May pending a public enquiry into the route.
The mooted bypass is a 5.7km route to the west of Glossop which
would take traffic round the villages of Mottram, Hollingworth and
Tintwistle before feeding it onto the trans-Pennine Woodhead Pass.
At a meeting last month, the Park Authority called for the
Highways Agency to look at alternatives to the new road. It fears
that the bypass would increase traffic in the area, have an adverse
impact on the landscape, both in terms of the road itself and the
traffic using it and create air pollution and noise which would
impact on access and recreation in the area.
National Park chair Tony Hams said: "We are very concerned about
the adverse impact on the National Park of the forecasted increases in
traffic, particularly of HGVs, on this heavily-used trans-Pennine
route.
"In addition, we are not satisfied that all of the alternatives to
the proposed scheme have been fully explored. We would like to see
further work undertaken to develop a scheme that has less of an
impact upon the National Park.
"We recognise the traffic problems in the villages and we are
sympathetic, but the scheme that has been presented is not
appropriate for a National Park setting, and would be detrimental to
our statutory purposes."
The Alternatives
Campaigners believe that a ban on lorries using the A628 and,
possibly, the re-opening of the Woodhead rail route for goods use,
would be a more effective means of handling the undoubted traffic
problems on the Woodhead road.
They're concerned that the new road will destroy moorland areas
and, in particular, Swallows Wood nature reserve, a breeding ground
for the rare arctic hare. They also say the new road could lead to
traffic increases of up to 124 per-cent, much of which would be
funneled across the Peak.
The bottom line is that you have until the end of this week to
register an objection to the plan. You can find more details at
www.saveswallowswood.org.uk.
Objections can be made by e-mail, use the subject line 'OBJECTIONS TO
THE A57/A628 MOTTRAM-TINTWISTLE BYPASS' and send your mail to
ha_info@highways.gsi.gov.uk.
There's an excellent downloadable
standard letter on the above site.
Jon Doran
