Cancelled!

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced on 29 July 2024 that the government is cancelling the A27 schemes, referring to them as 'low value, unaffordable commitments.'

Though we'd rather see the Arundel bypass cancelled for its unacceptable biodiversity and climate impacts, we welcome the news that it will not be going ahead.

In the midst of a climate and biodiversity crisis, spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a nature-destroying, traffic-inducing, carbon-producing scheme to save a few minutes of travel time was never a viable solution. We hope to see this option taken off the table completely with renewed focus on sustainable transport solutions that do not cost the environment.

What was being proposed?

National Highways was proposing a huge new 8km dual carriageway south of Arundel. The main public consultation was back in March 2022, with a further consultation in November 2022. Read Sussex Wildlife Trust's objection here: SWT Response to Arundel A27 Bypass Supplementary Consultation Nov 2022

The consultation stated that there would be no change in environmental impact from previous proposals, which have already been consulted upon. We therefore maintained our objection to the proposed scheme on the grounds of impacts to biodiversity for the following reasons:

• No recent detailed ecological survey information or hydrological modelling was provided with the main consultation and nothing further is being presented now - without this we cannot assess National Highways’ claims there will be minimal wildlife impacts
• There is not enough information about how surveys have been undertaken, so we cannot assess whether best practice has been followed. If this work hasn’t been carried out correctly, the results are invalid and cannot be relied upon to draw any meaningful conclusions
  
• It is not clear that the preferred 'grey' route has been informed by surveys, as most of the previous surveys from before 2019 were looking at areas impacted by alternative route ideas. For example, this route cuts across Binsted Rife in a completely different location than previous proposals.
• There is no detail on which elements of the proposal are affecting which areas: for example, haulage routes are required to build the road but we haven’t been told where these will go, so cannot assess their potentially significant impact
• 15 species of bat use the area – these are nationally significant populations that will be severed by a dual carriageway 
• National Highways is proposing to create two "green bridges" to reduce wildlife impacts, particularly for bats – but has not provided any information to demonstrate that these will be effective in terms of their location and design. It is critical to get this right, and without thorough assessment, these could prove to be extremely costly mistakes. (It's important to note that these "green bridges" still have roads on them, they are just a bit wider with more habitat on one side).
• The impacts on some ancient woodlands and ancient and veteran trees remain unknown. Despite claims that there will be no direct destruction of these irreplaceable habitats, they remain at risk of degradation and deterioration if the new road goes ahead. This is not acceptable.

Overall, we were seriously concerned that the Sussex Wildlife Trust and others would not be able to comment any further on all these unknown impacts until the Examination of the Development Consent Order – which is much too late in the process.