ACTION: Write to MPs to ask for NO NEW DCO*
*DCO - development consent order which gives National Highways the right to begin felling trees and starting the road works.
What is happening with the A38 expansion?
After the success of our legal challenge, the High Court’s order dated 8 July 2021 quashed the decision of the Secretary of State for Transport dated 8 January 2021 to grant the application by Highways England for development consent for the proposed grade separation of three junctions and road widening on the A38 in Derby.
Following that judgment, the Secretary of State must now re-determine that application.
Following the representations submitted in October 2021, the Secretary of State has issued a consultation letter requesting comments from National Highways (formerly Highways England) and Network Rail by Friday 4 February 2022.
Basically, the Government is considering granting another DCO and we have a chance to stop it by submitting representations and writing to MPs to ask them to say “no to a new DCO”.
Write to MPs
Please help to stop the A38 expansion by writing to the following MPs. Customise your message to each MP if you can and let them know why this is an important issue to you. If you’re a constituent, please let them know and include your residential address.
Derby North: Amanda.Solloway.mp@parliament.uk
Derby South: Margaret.Beckett.mp@parliament.uk
Mid Derbyshire: Pauline.Latham.mp@parliament.uk
Shadow Secretary for Transport: Louise.Haigh.mp@parliament.uk
If you’re short of time…
You can use this wording, preferably amending it slightly so it’s more personal to you and adding a statement or two of your own to say why you don’t want the A38 expansion to go ahead.
If you have time, it would be great if you could write your own letter or email and include some of the following points:
The A38 expansion is not the correct solution to solve congestion as it will encourage more vehicles by increasing road capacity and opening up nearby areas for more traffic inducing developments.
The congestion on there is rarely a problem - only occasionally at peak travel times or when there is an accident.
We need to drastically reduce carbon emissions to avoid climate catastrophe, but the expansion will increase them as well as increasing NO2 and particulate air pollution during 4 years of construction.
Precious wildlife habitat will be lost, when biodiversity in the UK has sharply declined.
Thousands of trees will be cut down including irreplaceable trees that are centuries old.
There will be traffic disruption to the city centre and increased pollution levels as traffic diverts from the roadworks during the 4 years of construction.
There will be lots of disruption to communities during the 4 years of roadworks with road closures, particularly in Mackworth.
Decent houses will be demolished and people will lose parts of their gardens and public green spaces.
Road traffic could be reduced by investing in better bus services, community car clubs and active travel, which are cheaper, cleaner and greener solutions. (Read more about how road traffic reduction has so many benefits including reducing congestion, improving road safety, cleaner air and good for the environment: https://green-alliance.org.uk/Not_going_the_extra_mile.php and https://www.a38derbychaos.org/news/september-21-a38-future).
It's a poor use of £250 million of public money, especially with the economic impacts of COVID and the need to invest in decarbonised transport infrastructure to meet climate targets.
The Welsh Government has paused and is reviewing all road building plans against their climate commitments and England should do the same if we want to be world leaders on climate action (see https://transportactionnetwork.org.uk/wales-leads-the-way/).
The Department for Transport's Decarbonising Transport plan says the number one strategic priority is "Accelerating modal shift to public and active transport" - the A38 expansion does not align with this (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transport-decarbonisation-plan).