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Link Road: Dudley Council Duplicity?
A couple of weeks ago the Government Office for the West Midlands published its long awaited Regional Planning
Guidance (RPG) report (see www.go-wm.gov.uk) in which, to the delight
of environmental campaigners and the relief of Gornal and Pensnett residents, it recommended that the Wolverhampton
and Stourbridge Western Bypasses should not be built.
This appeared at the time to signal the end of Dudley Council's proposal to extend the Dudley Southern Bypass from
Russell's Hall to the A449, cutting Pensnett in two and emerging at the foot of
Gornal near its historic toll house and Crooked House pub
(Click here for previous Yampy links)
. Surely even concrete jungle zealots like
Councillor Sparks would not advocate a dual carriageway feeder road onto a single carriageway spine?
However, on the front page of the latest edition of the Dudley News, Mat Danks reports that the Council still intends to go
full steam ahead. Head of Regeneration John Woodall is quoted as saying the following:
"The link road..was never dependent on the access route."
..which is strange, because in the official RPG report (ref. 8.6.38) it clearly states that Dudley Council's view
was that the three roads (Wolverhampton Western Bypass, Stourbridge Western Bypass, and Dudley-A449 link road) were
'not divisible'.
So Dudley Council's approach can be summed up thus: a Wolverhampton Western Bypass was essential until it was rejected,
at which point it was suddenly never important anyway.
The RPG document takes no view regarding the link road, but it does note a 'rough and ready' survey by the
Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), who took it upon themselves to speak to Pensnett Trading Estate
firms and apparently
found support for a link from Scott's Green to Stallings Lane.
This option was also floated by CPRE spokesperson Peter Sturgeon at a Bypass Briefing they organised with Friends
of the Earth at Wombourne Civic Centre a couple of weeks ago. Yampy attended this meeting and was extremely disappointed
with the CPRE. Unlike Friends of the Earth, who recognise that urban environments have conservation and cultural
considerations too, the CPRE are quite content so long as these nasty roads only choke up the townies and leave
the good people of Bobbington, Enville, Belbroughton etc. well alone. Why a reputable organisation like Friends of the Earth
should agree to share a platform with a narrow-minded, 'not in my back yard',
'get orf my land I'm listening to my Jethro Tull LP'
bunch like the CPRE is a complete mystery.
We hope that the CPRE are proud of themselves. They have provided just about the only sentence in the RPG document
that Dudley Council can cling to in their attempt
to keep the link road proposal alive.
Those wishing to keep abreast of this issue may wish to visit
www.antibypasscampaign.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.
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