A133/A120 link road

Response to the A120 A133 Link Road application from Wivenhoe Town Council.

Objection

Wivenhoe Town Council (‘WTC’) are not in support of this application because:- we have never been presented with evidence that it is justified in a regional road capacity context and there are more relevant projects (e.g. improvements to the A120) that should be prioritised; it ignores all current government reviews on road building due to Covid 19; it will not aid in any way the pro-duction of the modal shift the local authorities are committed to achieving ; it doesn’t comply with both national and local policy and it contradicts the Climate Emergency Declarations made by CBC and TDC and the goals of the Essex Climate Action Commission.

WTC consider that the link road is unwanted and unnecessary, as well as being environmentally devastating. Also, the application has large gaps in its’ evidence base and the conclusions made from it don’t bear scrutiny.

As ECC themselves are the ones to determine if permission is granted or not, we would also question the ability of officers and Cllrs to decide without predetermination caused by the conditions of the HIF funding. To present to the public that an independent and fair assessment of the application is to happen, we would insist that ECC investigate a time extension to the HIF bid conditions. This would allow any assessment of the roads merits to be considered alongside an up-to-date DPD (yet unavailable). Additionally, the link road only represents one half of a transport solution for the new town. Therefore, a detailed proposal for a designated RTS route needs to be assessed alongside it. As the only current benefit of the road is the supply of houses, we would also propose that the scheme needs to be reworked to provide a restricted service road from the development into Colchester and not a through route that will promote easy car use over public transport. The road shouldn’t permit through traffic from the A133 to the A120 as this will only encourage car dependency in the new development. Free access across the site will undermine the commitment towards the modal shift needed to meet Section 1 policy and the objectives of Essex climate action Commission.

Non-compliance with policy

Due to the extensive nature of the application and the limited time we must respond in, we are unable to list in detail all the areas we believe this application fails to comply with regards national and local policy. However, a simple and unacceptable example of this is that the application is not being submitted with an approved, current, or workable development plan. Reference to the 2017 issues and options plan should be dismissed as this plan has been rejected, does not relate to the current proposed location of the link road, and shows a RTS route that has never been consulted on by the applicant and is not one that is currently being considered. To accord with the National Planning Policy Framework section 2 (Achieving sustainable development) For decision-taking this means: ‘approving development proposals that accord with an up-to-date development plan.’ WTC believe it is unacceptable, especially for a local authority, to deviate from national policy in such a significant way.

This is even more pertinent as the reports on traffic modelling for the new road are skewed by an unrealistic modal shift associated with an unproven RTS . Working alongside local transport representatives, we do not believe there is a route (even with additional priority measures added), that will render any RTS route a quicker alternative to the car. However, if there is evidence to contradict this assessment it needs to be presented alongside this application.


We refer to the submission made by Rosie Pearsons and the assessments made in that submission. WTC agree this application contradicts many policies and declarations. In brief these are, but not limited to :-
Treasury Green Book
National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)
Climate Change Act 2008 (Amended)
Clean Air Strategy

Clean Growth Strategy

25 Year Environment Plan

Sixth Carbon Budget

Essex Transport Plan 2011

Essex County Council Climate Action Commission

Local Plan, Section 1

Emerging Local Plan: Section 2, Colchester

Emerging Local Plan, Section 2, Tendring

Colchester Borough Council’s Climate Emergency Declaration

Tendring District Council’s Climate Emergency Declaration


Cultural Heritage

We note that there will be significant impact on the 124 cultural heritage elements that have been identified.

We also note that 22 archaeological remains have been identified on the site. However, given the historic nature of the area this could be just a fraction of what may be destroyed once construction starts. Not only are the value of these prehistoric, Roman, medieval, and post-medieval period remains yet known, their discovery has the potential to cripple the unachievable time scales set in the HIF funding agreement. This is an unrealistic risk to the project’s viability.

We discuss later the inadequacy of governments net biodiversity guidelines and note in that context the loss of 75m of a protected lane and the destruction of 3,801m of ancient hedgerow and the large pedunculate oak they contain amongst other valued elements of biodiversity.



Air quality /noise and vibration disturbance / light pollution / impacts on Human Health and visual impact on the landscape.

WTC are very concerned that there is no evidence-based consideration of the impact of the A120-A133 link road on air quality in the ‘garden community’. However, we are horrified to learn that the construction phase alone will produce a minimum of 14,804 tons of CO2.

Although there is currently no data for air quality within the site, it is totally reasonable to assume a dual carriage way, with an adjacent, or bisected, new town of up to 9000 homes will generate a significant rise in pollution from nitrogen dioxide, particulate pollution (like silt, fuels, salt, and heavy metals) which will lead to an unacceptable risk from air pollution to the new community and potentially those surrounding it. There is also insufficient evidence to assess the impact on the four AQMA’s in Colchester. As the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assess-ment) Regulations 2017 refer to air pollution as one of the considerations to be addressed in plan-ning applications we submit that this application fails to do that.

We note that light, noise, and vibration created by the scheme will be detrimental to all living things.

We do not feel that the impact on the landscape has been fully explored or mitigated against. For instance, the road could be submerged into the landscape along most of its length. Providing visual and noise mitigation. Additionally, there is no reference to visual and noise screening of the overall development from the A133 and A120. As planting mitigation takes so long to establish and provide any benefit, even without a master plan, this work should be included in the first phase of any work that takes place on this site.



Water Quality, Flood Risk and Drainage


Sixpenny Brook, Tenpenny Brook and Salary Brook (that all discharge into the River Colne) and will all be affected by the movement of contaminated soil and road run off both during and after the construction phase. These high levels of pollution will feed into the destruction of habitat and wildlife corridors for bats, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, brown hares, hedgehogs and dormouse etc.

The environmental report does not examine the impact of development on the nearby Ardleigh reservoir and its ecology? As this will inevitably be linked into the water table, we would suggest it could be subject to pollution in the same way all other local water courses will be from this development.




Traffic and Transport

Traffic modelling reports are unrealistic and we feel are deliberately confusing in order to obfuscate. For instance, no tolerance has been added for additional usage due to ‘induced traffic’. flawed data and illogical assumptions do not lead to independent decision making. The Greenhouse Gas Emissions estimates submitted with this application by Ringway Jacobs defy any logic in parts. In their ‘do-minimum’ option, greenhouse gases will be almost the same as when a new dual carriageway is built, and again when 20,000 cars arrive with the new town. This type of evidence being submitted undermines the credibility of the whole application.
As a general comment we are extremely concerned with the evidence presented by Ringway Jacobs. We believe it has been severely distorted to suit the narrative that supports the application and can be easily discredited. We would ask that this work is undertaken by an independent consultant, as we do not believe it is possible to comply with either, local aspirations on emissions, or planning policy. We also support and agree with Rosie Pearsons’ submission on this application. In particular, the sections concerned with:- Carbon emissions, air quality and induced demand.

ECC’s current Transport Strategy states its’ aim as to ’Reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve air quality through lifestyle changes, innovation and technology’. We cannot therefore understand why the solution would be to spend £100million on a road and RTS based on a diesel bus.
One justification for the new road is that it will relieve congestion in the town centre, yet evidence has still not been made available to demonstrate that a modal shift will work, and people will use the RTS. For example, statistics presented at the section 1 hearing demonstrated that 80% of the Tendring commute is into Colchester town centre for work, (that figure ignores how many secondary school children also commute from east to west during the morning rush hour). Currently drivers living east of Frating will join the A120 at the roundabout there. However, there is no compelling reason why those destined for the town centre would abandon their cars 3 miles from their destination and use a bus (or walk or cycle) for the remainder of their journey. This would be especially bizarre behaviour when there is no congestion charge to use a car; the bus would be slower and an additional expense and parking is cheap, or free via employer schemes in the town.

At the recent CBC Section 2 hearing we heard from an ECC engineer discussing road capacity who stated: - ‘We can’t build our way out of the problem, the days of predict and provide, where dual carriageways were built to try and increase urban highway capacity, are over. And do they really work? Or are we just not providing more tarmac for more car journeys for more pollution’. Yet here they are proposing just that!

At the very least this project needs to be delayed and reworked to include new government thinking on climate emergency and their road building program and an approved master plan can show how a truly ‘rapid’ transport system can render this scheme sustainable.



Geology Soils and Minerals

National policies affording the protection of valued resources such as sand and gravel, which are known to be in this location, have been ignored and no surveys have yet been done on geology soils and minerals. We consider that this is down to expediency which has been prioritised over policy. The exception is the extraction of tons of gravel to create borrow pits. Their purpose being to dewater the ground to make it easier to tarmac. Extracting water from a drought region will have a devastating impact on wildlife. Borrow pits are also partial to land subsidence. We also reject their locations to the east of the road as they are unable to provide any kind of value, in terms of amenity and screening, to the new community there.



Environmental impact

Survey data for environmental impact is based on too few visits and not at times of the day when nocturnal/crepuscular species would have been more obvious. The presence of barn owls is a clear omission to the recordings and they are known to be present on site. The bat count is predictably low given the limited number of visits.

The rural area, whilst rich in farmland and mature hedge borne wildlife, is not a recognised wildlife venue as single-track roads prevent safe passage. However, it has been and continues to be an important area for wintering finches and bunting. Hedgerows are abundant with these species. Yet this is not reflected in the report.

The report mentions loss of habitat for key species but does not mention the truncation of several natural wildlife corridors which enable land-based wildlife to commute between habitats. In addition to the loss of habitat, the road and its consequential engineering will fundamentally disrupt the ecology of the area, with different drainage conditions leading to the destruction of plant species.

Biodiversity Net Gain is a doomed attempt to reconcile nature and economic growth. You cannot, on most metrics which are too fragile to stand up to informed scrutiny, afford the time it takes for one “nurtured” habitat to become equivalent to that which it replaces. Absent from these considerations is the effect on co-dependent species in the interim 25 years or more. You cannot commoditise nature or the environment.

Whilst Neil Harvey is a highly competent ecologist, there appears to be no reference to any locally compiled records of observations of birds or other species. WTC have had access to such records for more than 10 years, and suggest some understandable, (given the limited time for observation and lack of formal database of records) but, serious omissions are present in the ECC reports.


Biodiversity

We are also gravely concerned that the principle of “net biodiversity gain” which appears to gov-ern Garden City principles has not been presented in a way that truly reflects the net loss that these developments present. For example, simply replacing lost hedgerows with vegetation else-where may over a relatively short period of time sequestrate an equal amount of carbon (alt-hough more would be required to offset the effect of the proposed development and its associat-ed activity). However, the loss of biodiversity would not be a simple correlation with net loss of habitat. The truncation of mature hedgerows at multiple intersections effectively destroys terres-trial wildlife corridors for safe passage of terrestrial wildlife and disaffects the continuity of the ecosystem applicable to such networks of mature hedges. Such critical degradation would effec-tively be a tipping point for many species which would amount to extinction from the area. It is highly unlikely that the natural resource has been identified and secured which would offset this impact; although we remain open to ,and would be willing to expertly scrutinise ,any evidence to the contrary.
We agree with Friends of the Earth who have concluded about biodiversity offsetting that;-
‘The theory of offsetting is that damage to and loss of wildlife habitat can be ‘offset’ by creating or enhancing nature elsewhere and that doing so can avoid net losses and may even provide ‘net gains. That is how offsetting is being promoted, but evidence from north America, Australia, and Germany, where offsetting has been policy for decades, shows that it is not working. The UK’s offsetting pilots have also been inconclusive at best.’
The government’s planning rules still allow loss of irreplaceable habitat for “wholly exceptional reasons” such as for “nationally significant infrastructure projects”, this application cannot be classified in that way. We do not support in any way that the loss of elements like ancient wood-land in strawberry grove (that are of national importance) can be ‘offset’ by planting a few sap-lings and grass seed. Assuming they can comply with a defective net biodiversity gain policy that still doesn’t excuse that they do not comply with other national policy.

We do not believe there is a place for half measures such as offsetting and net gain. Habitat res-toration and creation is not best secured by allowing tradable destruction of habitats elsewhere. Evidence from countries where offsetting has been practiced for decades, and even from the UK’s own recent unconvincing pilots, needs to be minded. Although current policy provides cover for politicians and economic benefit for businesses banking on offsetting as way to maintain business as usual, it should not be used by a local authority to justify allowing questionable development to proceed.


Climate Change

Electric vehicles (which are not even proposed for the RTS) have little or no improvement in their carbon footprint over fuel-powered vehicles; because the electricity needed to charge them is generated by burning fossil fuels (this is well documented), but the pollution from particulates other than fuel are the same. The proposed link road and associated RTS have been planned with no apparent integration of lighter grade networks for individual electric vehicles such as scooters/mobility vehicles which are now affordable for the majority and surely a quicker mode of independent transport for commutes of six miles or less. The inevitable modal shift for such commutes in well-planned settlements effectively negates the need to relieve traffic congestion with projects such as this. Ironically, ECC’s current preferential scheme of Spin scooters benefits from other private vehicles of the same specification being deemed illegal to ride, thus creating a monopoly for the authority that has an almost unbreakable bond with its biggest contractor – road builder, Ringway Jacobs. Whilst this monopoly disincentivises people to use electric scooters, no credible study can be done at a local level to assess the impact of such modal shift on traffic.

Layout of the road

We are disappointed that ECC were unwilling to engage in a constructive dialogue about this ap-plication at a pre app stage. Below is a list of outstanding issues and queries on the layout of the road:-

We do not support the proposal to terminate Tye Road on the eastern side of the link road. The road currently provides important access across this site and is well used by cyclist and pedestrians as a route around a valued and rare example of a particular type of rural Essex landscape. We can see no value in restricting access to it for local traffic. Doing so penalis-es local people who have enjoyed this route for many decades. It may also be a disincen-tive for people to commute locally using lighter weight electric vehicles that would not re-quire a public highway for their use.

We believe the lack of a pedestrian crossing across the road at the Allen roundabout and the elongated diversion to the PRoW here is counterintuitive to human behaviour. This new route leads to the risk of serious accidents and safety concerns for pedestrians that will try and cross the road without any crossing provision. Leaving till a later stage consultation on the PRoW deviation is clearly unworkable, as the road needs to adapt in design now, to in-corporate the obvious feedback this will bring.

The location of the proposed Park and Choose should not be left until a later stage. The master planning and the road layout should be done simultaneously. We would also argue the location of the park and ride is a matter of logic based on the routes of the RTS and the link road and therefore can, and should, form part of this application. We would emphasise that we would not support its’ location south of the A133.

We do support the submission made by Colchester cycle campaign (within the environ-mental consultation submission) for a time phased one way system and bus gate on the junction with A133. We are concerned that ECC have not given this due consideration.


Site specifics

Roundabouts

A new roundabout is proposed at the junction of the link road and the A133. From our experience in Colchester, these roundabouts cause considerable congestion which cause an increase in pollution. Has the number of roundabouts in the road been factored into the traffic report?

Construction time

A proposed construction of an A120 overbridge superstructure will necessitate the total closure of both sides of the road. A commitment to keeping the A120 open with all lanes must be considered, during peak hours.

Construction times do not include nightwork. In order to facilitate the proposed works meeting the timescale set by the HIF funding agreement, this should be factored into the project costings as a minimum. Our experience of other projects in Colchester is that schemes persistently over run predicted timescales and WTC suggest provision is made now to accommodate this and pre warn the public.

Importantly, advanced works prior to the contract date will begin 10 months in advance. Therefore disruption, with no apparent gain for the existing residents will lead to a minimum of 3 years of works along this route. This application should be honest in this respect so the public have advanced warning.


Services

Affinity Water pipes must be moved but no timescale is given. This is not only critical to the road but also the new town. If the new town is to be built, then it would be sensible for these future needs to be factored into work programs and timescales now.

Additionally, there are asbestos cement mains, overhead lines owned by UKPN, BT Openreach lines and buried plant will need to be moved. None of these elements have been given a timescale in the associated reports. This leaves existing consumers in the dark about service provision. It also puts the overall timescale of the project at considerable risk.



Access & Borrow Pits - Water/Drains


Additional concerns are revealed in the details of this application that are buried deep in the documentation, there is barely time to glance over Them. They are briefly outlined below;

Three new site accesses will be required with a mini town for contractors, setup for stores, canteens, toilets, skips, parking, showers, plant machines and offices. This will be at Ardleigh South Services, off the east bound A120, at the WTS and off the eastbound A133.

A haul road will be created along the entire route, which proposes to use the current cycle/footway. This is for the material to be moved up and down the course of the proposed carriageway.

There is also a risk that a new road crossing under the A120 may be required.

The proposed 5 borrow pits will be filled with 540k m3 tonnes of soil for the road. There could be an issue here with natural springs, causing a massive environmental disaster. There’s no report of a detailed plan of potential results. The excavation of the 5 borrow pits will adversely impact the entire project site affecting farmers land and businesses in the area. There is also a risk of subsidence to listed building and to the A133 itself. There is no mention of where water will be pumped when pits are created. This will impact watercourses and most importantly the surrounding nature and the habitats that depend on a water supply. There is also the impact that the water will have, if it enters the River Colne which is designated as a European site of importance.

The relocation of a 600 mm high pressure water main, categorised as a strategic main, runs through the proposed site and will require re directing. This alone will place a huge delay and cost given that the mains are old and of asbestos material. There is no mention of any method statements or risk assessments having been carried out.


Further questions we would have asked if we had been given the op-portunity to meet after the preapplication stage.

A) Appointment of contractor.
1) Did the appointment of Ringway Jacobs follow the correct tender process?
2) If so, what was this?
3) Which other contractors were asked to take part?
4) Does the production of the environmental study by the road builder (Ringway Jacobs) not present a direct conflict of interest?
5) Why was an independent consultant not used?

B) COVID 19
1) What consideration has been given to the changes in economy, employment trends and commute patterns due to COVID 19?


C) Other infrastructure
1) Given that the upgrading of the A120 is part of the list in section 1 policy of essential infrastructure that needs to be secured before the new town can proceed; what impact does this have on the timescales set out in the HIF funding agreement in terms of housing delivery?
2) What consideration was given to the phasing of other infrastructure delivery in the Jacobs traffic modelling reports? For instance, the trigger point for delivery of a secondary school is 4,500 homes. Therefore, with a build out rate of no more that 250 a year, all students will have to commute out of the settlement until, at a minimum of, year 18 of the build.

I agree that for Wivenhoe and Elmstead the road could be useful. I believe some at the university are keen too. However my point would be it is not of regional importance compared to say the work that is needed on the A120 to service Harwich free port. The reason the money was granted is to unlock the site for housing. If we were to spend 100million on a RTS rather than 30 it would be far more likely to encourage people to change their habits. A simple service road (paid for by the developer) through th
e site would satisfy any from Wivenhoe trying to miss town centre traffic.