Blog ARCHIVE
Roadbuilders revving their engines…
Despite our legal challenge to the £27 billion roads programme and widespread recognition we need to dramatically change direction due to COVID and the deepening climate emergency, Highways England are ploughing on regardless. While government ministers are still under the illusion that electric cars will solve everything. This week has...
Heading in the right direction?
England's Economic Heartland is consulting on its draft Transport Strategy until midnight on Tuesday, 6th October. Once approved it will set the framework for future transport policies and investment in the area for the next 30 years. The region which lies to the west and north of London, stretching from Swindon...
Cut road spending and build back better
There are few opportunities to tell the Government how public funds should be spent, but this year with its Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) the Treasury has asked for our ideas. We’re encouraging people to tell them not to waste £27 billion and more on new roads. We want the Government...
Cut carbon now!
In March this year, the Government launched its consultation on Decarbonising Transport: Setting the Challenge which we're urging people to respond to before the end of August. While it was criticised by some for only being a consultation on creating a plan, not on a plan itself, and for some of...
TAN wins first round in roads battle
We've won the first round in our David and Goliath battle against the Department for Transport's (DfT) £27bn roads programme. We were given permission to proceed with our legal challenge to the “largest ever roads programme” at the High Court this week. An order by Mrs Justice Lieven declared the case to...
Road plans to wipe out e-car savings
Sometimes when you take a hard decision, it’s only later you’re sure you did the right thing. Today was one such moment when we read a new study that rubbishes the Government’s claim that new roads have little impact on climate change. The study calculates 80% of the carbon savings...
A shot across the bows?
The Government was supposed to file its response to our legal challenge against its huge roads programme this week. Instead we’re still waiting. In its annual report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) called on ministers to “seize the opportunity” from COVID to tackle accelerating climate change. Surely...
New report urges Silvertown Tunnel rethink
A new report: The Silvertown Tunnel is in a hole, so STOP DIGGING, published today, calls for the £1.2 billion Silvertown Tunnel project to be cancelled. It claims it is incompatible with the Greater London Authority’s vision to be carbon neutral by 2030. The report shows that the tunnel project...
Top climate scientist warns against more roads
As carbon emissions took a sudden turn for the worst this week, as lockdowns across the globe were eased, a top climate scientist has warned that building more roads “would be very detrimental”. Corrine Le Quere, is a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia and a...
Department’s addiction to road-building challenged
After much preparation, and with substantial public backing, our lawyers have started proceedings against the Department for Transport’s £27bn Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2). Described by the Chancellor at its launch in March as England’s “largest ever” road-building programme, it breaches climate change and air quality laws. The historic case,...
Drive as much as you want to!
Across our cities roads are being closed while new cycle lanes and wider pavements pop up, promising to reset our relationship with cars. By contrast ministers have just started encouraging the public to “drive as much as you want to” to visit the countryside. So it was no big surprise...
A good start but a way to go yet
We’re absolutely thrilled that within 7 days of launching the crowdfunder for our legal challenge we had raised over £25,000 with 750 people donating. A huge thank you to everyone who has spread the word, donated, and shared the link to the Crowd Justice appeal. However, we need to raise a...
And we’ve launched!
Thank you SO much to you all for your donations. Each and every one has brought us closer to our target. In fact thanks to your amazing generosity, by the end of our first day (by happy coincidence the 50th Earth Day) we raised a THIRD of our initial costs....
New roads accelerating climate change
After the delay to the National Infrastructure Strategy (NIS) it was logical to conclude that it wouldn’t make sense to press ahead with a massive road building announcement until after the NIS was published. After all, would you order a carpet before you had designed the house? That’s why, and...
The road to tackling climate change
The Court of Appeal decision on Heathrow exposed that aviation national planning policy is not fit for purpose to tackle rising carbon emissions from transport. However, the same is true of the National Networks National Policy Statement (NNNPS) which is the over-arching planning policy framework for the development of nationally...
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