Walberton Parish Council supports the overall objective of improving traffic flow through the whole A27 corridor. Any improvements should benefit all communities, safeguard traffic conditions on local roads and prevent the displacement of congestion and severance from one place to another.
WPC intends to approach the 2019 consultation according to the following principles and seeks to engage with other stakeholders on a similar basis.
Stakeholders should take an evidence-based approach. Highways England must provide a full suite of easily accessed and quality assured documentation to support its statements, calculations and conclusions.
All stakeholders should commit to a new assessment of the options based on this new body of evidence and reject pre-determined opinions, surveys and decisions held over from 2017.
In 2019, stakeholders should commit to fair and equal engagement with all residents and their elected representatives across the scheme area.
Stakeholders expect Highways England to conduct the new consultation transparently. The company must admit errors as they are identified and correct them as soon as possible. The evidence presented to different stakeholders must be identical and available to all.
All stakeholders should take account of developments at national level since the last consultation including the declaration of climate and nature conservation emergencies.
Walberton Parish Council supports improvements to the A27 to enable sustainable growth of the local economy.
Stakeholders should not support an option for which mitigation and / or compensation has not been specified, costed and demonstrated to be feasible and affordable.
Recognising the urgency of the situation at Arundel, stakeholders should take a realistic and informed view of the probability of any Preferred Route being granted a Development Consent Order. This will take into account issues such as breadth of support and opposition, affordability, value for money, and NPPF compliance as well as benefits to journey times and the local economy.
| August 2019 |