Protest over Shrewsbury's North West Relief Road in national day of action
Protesters will line part of the route planned for Shrewsbury's North West Relief Road as part of national action against major transport projects.
Better Shrewsbury Transport is hosting the morning protest on Shelton Rough in the north of the town on Saturday.
The £80m road, which would stretch for four miles from Churncote Roundabout to Battlefield, would effectively complete the ring road around Shrewsbury.
Shropshire Council is expected to debate a planning application for the road this spring.
On Saturday, protesters will line the route that the road will take across the Severn with signs, banners and placards. The aim is to highlight the growing opposition to the relief road and the Government’s plans to build £24.7b worth of new roads across the UK.
Protests and banner drops are also planned across the country, from Cornwall to Cumbria, as campaigners object to road projects in their local areas.
The national action is led by Roads Rebellion, an off-shoot of Extinction Rebellion.
In Shrewsbury, protesters will point out that the 48,000 tons of CO2 created by building the North West Relief Road is incompatible with dealing with the climate emergency and call on the Government to withdraw funding for it.
Mike Streetly, spokesperson for Better Shrewsbury Transport, said: "We are protesting because we know that we cannot continue building unnecessary new roads in a climate emergency. The carbon footprint and ecological destruction caused by the NWR cannot be justified.
"Pushing ahead with this road will be a disaster for our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and beyond. The choices we make today are going to have huge implications for our future well-being.
"We want the government and the Department for Transport to stop ignoring the Paris Agreement climate goals and start building a cleaner, greener future for us all. We’re calling on the Prime Minister to take the lead on reducing journeys made by car and to support local authorities, by providing political backing and money for greener means of transport.
"We need to end car dependency and end the historical underfunding of public transport and active travel. In line with the UN recommendation of 2016, 20 per cent of the transport budget should be spent on Active Travel. At a time when the Prime Minister is warning about the collapse of civilisation unless we slash our emissions, the Department for Transport cannot justify the £54m grant for the North West Road."
Roads Rebellion has written an open letter to the Government calling for it to pause and review its transport policy and asking it to redirect funding to cleaner forms of transport instead.
