Open Letter
We are from the Stop the A38 Expansion, a group of Derby residents trying to stop the environmentally destructive A38 Derby Junctions road scheme. We would like to ask you to sign our open letter, asking our politicians to stop this environmentally destructive new road for good.
If it went ahead, we would have a noisy, polluting, carbon-emitting and nature-destroying motorway-style road cutting through Derby and running past our most visited park. In its own planning documents, National Highways predict that the road will increase traffic, so we know that it will make congestion worse. It will also:
increase carbon emissions
increase air and noise pollution (air pollution in Derby is already dangerously high)
destroy vital wildlife habitats (including local wildlife reserves)
destroy thousands of trees (including a veteran oak)
‘unlock’ land for thousands more car-dependent homes to the west of Derby, creating more urban sprawl (with no mention of amenities being built at the same time)
cost at least £250 million (money which could and should be spent on maintaining existing roads, improving public transport and creating more active travel routes)
Research shows that new roads always increase traffic, and we cannot continue to build our way out of traffic congestion.
We are in a climate and nature emergency. We need to drastically reduce carbon emissions and air and noise pollution, and we need to protect, not destroy nature, before it’s too late. The UK has already seen a huge decline in biodiversity and is one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries.
We therefore feel that it’s time for our politicians to “come to their senses”. Let’s stop allowing developers to choose the most profitable locations to build the types of homes we don’t need rather than those we do. We need to cancel the A38 Derby Junctions road scheme and have massive investment in public transport and active travel which will enable us all to save money, breathe cleaner air and be more active, which will benefit the planet as well as our physical and mental health.
A longer version of this letter can be found here.