[imc-sheffield] Feature Proposal: No M1 widening

[Helen and Nick]

Hi 

Agree with the concern over the perspective it is written from. How about just publishing the first bit below as a feature and the group can add the second bit about implications for SY and existing solutions, how to help etc as a comment or follow-up newswire thing 

 

Thursday 22nd September  is the international "leave your car at home" day. But since it isn't mentioned in the piece it don't matter I guess - it can be mentioned by those who want to in the newsire thing. Will tell julie etc what's being done

Hx

 

"The department of transport have announced early its intention to widen the M1 from Leicester to Leeds (junctions 21 - 42) to 4 lanes in both directions. There is also widening planned for junctions 6a-13 (M25 - Luton). The plans that have been published are fragmented and it is difficult to get the full overall picture of the road building plans, its timeline and key milestones, but what is clear so far is:

 

• Construction work is planned to start on the section from junction 6a - 10 (M25 towards Luton) in January 2006. The public consultation for section 10-13 was completed in April 2005. The date for a public enquiry for this section, if needed will be in 2007, with work to start in 2008.

• Sections 21-30 cover Leicester to Chesterfield. Public consultation is planned for 2006. Some work within the existing motorway boundary is due to commence 2006/7. Further work at a later date will require land acquistion, building extra lanes and a bypass around Kegworth. 

• The sections affecting the environs of Sheffield, junction 30-42, are at an earlier stage. There are plans to embark on a full public consultation for this section in spring 2006, with a public enquiry planned for 2008. 

 

The plans so far seem to indicate that near Sheffield the M1 will have four narrow lanes within the existing motorway boundary, and three lanes on the Tinsley viaduct. Contractors have been commissioned to undertake development work and preliminary design. These include Arup [www.arup.com] (junctions 21-30, Leicester to Chesterfield) and Mouchel Parkman [www.mouchelparkman.com] (junctions 30-42, around Sheffield). The cost of the M1 widening is estimated to be over £3.5 billion. Recent experience and research has shown that road programmes frequently exceed their estimates by a factor of three. 

 

The M1 widening plans are part of a huge national road building programme, which continues to escalate. In spring this year the government announced that twelve more roads were to enter the roads programme. This is despite the Highways Agency being previously asked to look at 'traffic management' for these schemes.

 

There's a national conference against road building and airport expansion on 8th October in Nottingham (contact info at roadalert.org.uk Groups (www.nowideningm1.org.uk) opposing the M1 widening are emerging along the route. "


Chris <chris at aktivix.org> wrote:Hi

Great to see some new content :-)

On Mon 19-Sep-2005 at 09:30:24PM +0100, Helen and Nick
wrote:
> 
> A proposed article was written by the Sheff no M1
> widening group. Here it is - i am happy to take on
> doing suggested amendments.
> 
> Is this article is OK, the group have suggested putting
> it up for Thursday, which I think is no car day. There
> is goin to be a press release and sosmething else that
> day.

I have added this to the site but not yet published it:

https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/uk/servlet/Mir?module=Content&do=edit&id=323896

I was wondering if the idea was to keep it back till
Thursday?

Also my feeling is (and r7 agreed in irc) that since this
is very much written from the view of the campaign (it's
in favour of things like road charging) it would be better
on the newswire and then it could be linked to from a
shorter feature about the issue and this feature could
also link to the press release etc -- would this be OK?

Chris

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