Campaigners welcome A27 Arundel bypass cancellation
The project has been scrapped as part of spending cuts announced by the Chancellor
Campaigners opposed to the building of a bypass on the A27 at Arundel have been celebrating victory after plans for the road scheme were cancelled.
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the move on Monday (July 29th) as part of efforts to address what she described as a £22 billion hole in public finances.
Ms Reeves told the House of Commons:
"If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it."
The project, which had been estimated to cost at least £320 million, had been put back by the Government to 2025.
Ms Reeves has said that the Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, would undertake a 'thorough' review of £1bn of 'unfunded transport projects' committed to over the next year.
She added:
"As part of that work, she has agreed not to move forward with projects the previous government refused to publicly cancel despite knowing full well that they were unaffordable.
"That includes proposed work on the A303 and the A27."
Highways England, which was behind the project, had argued that building the bypass would help to ease congestion and prevent rat-running on roads around Arundel.
Campaigners had long opposed the scheme because of its environmental impact on the South Downs National Park, and the potential impact on the villages of Walberton, Binstead and Tortington.
The Sussex branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has described the announcement as a 'huge win for Sussex'.
Its director Paul Steedman thanked all those who 'fought so hard to fight this inappropriate scheme'.
He added:
"Now, Arundel should get the investment in transport it deserves – lower-impact, congestion-smoothing measures. These measures must be part of a low-emission, co-ordinated transport plan, including public transport, walking and cycling.”
The charity also argued construction of the bypass would have a huge carbon footprint and, when completed, the road would encourage more car journeys which was incompatible with net zero objectives.
Speaking after the decision was announced, Arundel and South Downs Conservative MP Andrew Griffith described it as 'wrong'.
He added:
"It's a shocking decision, it's going to impact commmunities not just in that area but across West Sussex.
"Anyone trying to travel between Brighton and Chichester will either hit congestion and cause pollution, or be rat-running through villages in communities that were never designed to take that level of traffic.
"It's going to affect hundreds of thousand of people's lives, blight communities with pollution and congestion with decades to come, all for the sake of being able to spend more in the short term on pet spending projects that they (Labour) have got elsewhere."