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Press Release

'Carbon Crunch' Looms As English Regions Press For Years More Road Building

18 March 2009

Countryside campaigners CPRE fear it will be 'bulldozing as usual' as the English regional bodies release their proposals to focus Government funding on 'high-carbon' road building. This comes as new data by CPRE reveals that motor traffic levels have increased by 40% in many areas over the last 15 years. These increases in traffic have made transport the fastest growing source of domestic carbon emissions.

Advice published last summer by the Department for Transport asked regions in vague terms to reflect on how their transport decisions would impact on carbon emissions. Unsurprisingly, most regions have failed to work out whether individual schemes will increase or decrease carbon emissions. Disappointingly every single region is on course to increase its transport emissions.

Ralph Smyth, CPRE's Senior Transport Campaigner, said:

'With the Climate Change Act 2008's legal targets to slash carbon emissions, it should not be "business as usual" for rural areas if the regions are to tackle growing car dependence effectively.

'It is clear that regional decision makers are reluctant to face up to the incompatibility of rising traffic levels and lower carbon emissions. We need urgent investment in rail, bus, walking and cycle routes to give people in all areas real choices for low-carbon travel.'

Although there have been improvements in some areas, most regions have carried on before with transport priorities drawn up before the credit crunch and the Climate Change Act. Spending on road building ranges from 45% of transport funding for major schemes in Yorkshire & Humber to over 80% in the South East.

Ralph Smyth concluded: 'Transport Ministers should not accept the regions' wish-lists unchanged. We need a dramatic increase in the proportion of sustainable transport schemes to make up for the regions' failure to take carbon cuts seriously.'



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