Shropshire climate protesters take anti-North West Relief Road message to Government's doorstep
Campaigners opposed to Shrewsbury's North West Relief Road joined protesters from across the UK in descending on the Department of Transport in London.
They joined hundreds of others to call for an end to ‘climate-wrecking new roads’.
The North West Relief Road is a Shropshire Council highways scheme that would complete a ring-road around Shrewsbury.
The council has argued it is essential to take traffic out of Shrewsbury's town centre, and will boost the economy of the county.
But, it has attracted significant opposition, both from local campaigners, as well as town councils, such as Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry.
The project is finally expected to go before a planning committee in the coming weeks, after major delays – although significant question marks remain over the funding for the road, with the final bill expected to be significantly greater than the £81m originally budgeted.
The county campaigners visiting London included members of Better Shrewsbury Transport (BeST), Extinction Rebellion Shrewsbury, and other county environmental groups.
They joined the ‘People’s Picket’ outside the DfT’s headquarters on Horseferry Road in London at midday on Friday.
They met up with campaigners from groups including Stop the Wensum Link, the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition, Save Stonehenge, and Transport Action Network.
The event is part of 'The Big One', four days of action from April 21 to 24 organised by Extinction Rebellion.
It will see people from multiple groups and movements gathering throughout Westminster and at the Houses of Parliament to call for action on the climate emergency.
The Shropshire activists hand-delivered a letter for Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, calling on him to review the North West Relief Road in light of its soaring costs and environmental impact.
Jo Blackman from Extinction Rebellion Shrewsbury, who delivered the letter to the DfT, said: “The North West Relief Road won’t happen without the DfT’s £54m funding package, which is why we’re here at their offices. We need the DfT and every other Government department to start treating the climate emergency with the urgency it deserves. Climate scientists and the UN IPCC are telling us that we are heading towards a catastrophic 4C of global heating within our children’s lifetimes if we don’t act now. We can either have new roads or we can have a stable climate. We can’t have both.”
She added: “Tens of thousands of people are in London this weekend because they know in their heads and their hearts that our government is failing all of us. The latest revelation that the DfT can’t calculate its carbon properly is yet another sign that our leaders aren’t up to the challenge of the climate emergency.
"If we’re going to keep the world below 1.5C of warming – and that is now a very big if – we will have to make radical changes to every aspect of our lives, not least of all the way we travel. The climate-wrecking North West Relief Road isn’t part of that solution, it’s a road to ruin. The DfT needs to pull its funding and invest in schemes that will reduce transport emissions.”
