Arundel A27 bypass stopped - for now
By Laura Brook
Conservation Officer
We received some unexpected good news last Thursday (9 March) when the Secretary of State for Transport announced that the proposed Arundel A27 bypass has been put on hold for at least two years.
The scheme has now been pushed back to the 2025-2030 period, with the government stating environmental and design issues as the underlying reasons for this shift in timescale.
Sussex Wildlife Trust, alongside many other groups, has campaigned tirelessly to stop this proposed bypass since it was first announced, due to the significant and irreversible environmental damage it would cause. Instead, we have consistently proposed an alternative, more environmentally sensitive option for congestion issues around Arundel.
We therefore welcome this delay in proceedings, which demonstrates the government is at least acknowledging that there are significant environmental (and financial) concerns. However, for Sussex Wildlife Trust the announcement does not go far enough and we won’t stand down until the Arundel A27 bypass option is taken off the table completely.
The government has made clear and bold commitments to address climate change through the Climate Change Act 2008, which intends to see us reach net zero by 2050. Meanwhile, the global ecological emergency continues, and we are still losing wildlife at an alarming rate - yet proposals for new roads are still being put forward, despite the irreversible environmental destruction and long-term carbon emissions they will cause. We need bold government commitments to the environment - and to our precious Arun Valley and vulnerable species - to be supported by bold government action. Arundel is crying out for a more relevant, sustainable and progressive approach to transport, which does not cost the environment.
So, while the bypass delay is welcome and hopefully signals a change of approach to come, the threat remains and our campaign will continue. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far.
Comments
This by pass does so much damage to our wild
15 Mar 2023 21:41:00
As someone who uses that section of road to visit family in Winchester I am a little disappointed as the delay will probably out live me. It’s an horrendous route, I know what your thinking, get a bus or train but a bus is impossible because of a medical condition and the trains are too expensive. The duel carriage way ended outside Arundel decades ago, I find it difficult to believe that a barrier to the bypass has just been about conservation issues. Over the ensuing decades i can’t help feeling that greater effort could not have been made protecting the environment by addressing agricultural practices, reducing consumption and capitalism
17 Mar 2023 11:09:00
I agree with other commentary on this; it’s all very well stopping the bypass, but you MUST come up with a viable alternative. After all these years and all the appalling congestion that ensues because it’s NOT been built, a more constructive approach would be more helpful. Those of us who regularly use the route have mixed feelings about blocking every attempt at easing the traffic issues.
23 Mar 2023 11:31:00
Sussex Wildlife Trust:
Details of the alternative option can be found here: https://www.arundelalternative...
I agree that the proposed route may have been too unfriendly for wildlife BUT I agree that a bypass is essential on that road and I look forward to reading the more environmentally sensitive proposal for a route so that the bypass can be built AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Think about the people who live locally and try to use the current route daily!
thank you.
23 Mar 2023 14:53:00
Hurray. I know it is frustrating for motorists, and I myself missed a medical appt when A27 near Polegate was desperately jammed; but we all have to make sacrifices in the uphill struggle against climate breakdown. Roads are terribly retrograde attempts to solve problems which are essentially of our own making. Should we not be campaigning for better/cheaper trains/buses? Wildlife, once gone, will take generations to recover, if it can ever do so, and we already regret the loss of species we used to enjoy when younger.
23 Mar 2023 16:19:00
Good news indeed 😊 Well done everyone.
I am sure we will not take our eye off this particular bad ball!
24 Mar 2023 08:04:00
I use that route frequently. Often when visiting Arundel WWT ironically. Yes the delays are inconvenient, but that’s the height of it.
This is undoubtedly good news as far as it goes, and I hope genuine wisdom will prevail over the roads lobby, and SAT’S proposal is ultimately accepted (and even then I’m guessing that’ll be dependent on whether the money is available.
24 Mar 2023 10:35:00
It’s extraordinary the vandalism the government allows without weighing up consequences. A friend who lives in Warwick tells me that the route of HS2 has laid waste to ancient woodland and environments that can never be replaced – without a centimeter of track being laid, or the benefits fully being established. The line WILL NOT even go into central London – thus surely negating any benefit gained by a faster journey, when you have to spend it getting to where you want to go. I believe that we’re dealing with much the same here; an ill though-out programme, which doesn’t take the car user/person wishing to make a journey into account, or the impact on our environment of simply bulldozing a road through it, which will do little other than encourage further “ribbon” development and therefore prove it to be insufficient for requirements and defunct in no time. Yes, we do need something done about traffic issues in the south (I should know – I live in Hastings and we’re virtually cut off from the rest of the country) but it has to be logically, carefully and sustainably planned; this isn’t. There is no planning to increase the availability of any form of public transport as part of the proposals, nor to look at the difference between local journeys and longer “through” ones (where the traffic could be routed much further inland and avoid the area entirely – which would do a great deal to help.
28 Mar 2023 10:10:00
Im glad its delayed. There are too many roads cutting wildlife routes off. Roads and vehicles for some mad reason seem to get priority over nature, and its nature that has to work harder with our help to reduce contaminates. There are currently great deals on buses and trains as a travel alternative.
12 Apr 2023 18:49:00
That’s good but whoever agreed to put a massive new housing estate exiting the Angmering roundabout at East Preston (which is normally jammed up on the A259) hopefully checked the wildlife situation before construction started! Sue
13 Jul 2023 11:18:00
As someone who regularly had to use the A27/M27 route from my home in Rye, Sussex to my mother’s house in Ferndown Dorset I can only endorse the DoT’s plans to complete the South-Coast expressway. Somewhere I still have copies of the DOT’s 1980’s white papers “Roads, England” which listed the Arundel Bypass as a priority on this route project 40 years ago… Sorry SWT, a 40mph single carriageway through Arundel doesn’t cut the mustard. And as for Worthing …. AAAGH!
13 Jul 2023 13:10:00
How many people are wondering who’s reading this and why are they reading anything connected to a wildlife trust if they want to impose yet more traffic on us and the ecosystems around. Can it be that even when some read a trust article they really only support saving the world around us when it’s convenient. Climate change certainly isn’t convenient. Species extinction isn’t convenient and we’re one of those species.
13 Jul 2023 15:40:00
The people of Arundel themselves came up with the best alternative which is simpler and less costly and I don’t know why it hasn’t been considered.
13 Jul 2023 17:49:00
I don’t think that you should be so chuffed that the A27 bypass has been scrapped. This will cause ongoing misery for years, for residents, goods and services. Yours appears to be a very selfish one-eyed view.
I am aware that you have proposed an alternative solution, but quite frankly it’s nonsense. A single carriageway through Arundel? Don’t be silly.
14 Jul 2023 07:09:00
I’ve heard that the Labour Party intends to put a STOP on any new road building if returned to power next year! Food for thought perhaps, if it’s true.
17 Jul 2023 15:54:00
This was good news indeed. The problem with the bypass is that the longest, most environmentally destructive and definitely the most expensive route was chosen by National Highways. The cost was estimated at half a billion (although they were only declaring it to be £350million, the changes that needed to be made to please all the interested parties was going to push the price up). There is a cheaper, sensible, viable alternative (the Arundel Alternative) that they simply refused to consider because it wasn’t a dual carriage way but concentrated instead on keeping traffic flowing. Yes there are delays on this route (I am local too) but that doesn’t mean that all sense has to go out of the window.
20 Jul 2023 17:58:00