Campaigning for the countryside  - its landscape, rural communities, agriculture, and wildlife

A14 and Guided Bus

 

Back in 1993 the County Council were considering the future of the old Cambridge-St Ives railway line.  In December 2000 we organised a public meeting on proposals for the Cambridge-Huntingdon Multi-Modal Study (commonly known as CHUMMS).  CHUMMS, a partnership between Government Office East and other bodies, had proposed four basic road concepts and put forward ideas for public transport which included a guided bus system.

 

In 2003 Cambridgeshire County Council proposed the use of the Cambridge-St Ives railway line for a guided bus system.  The Branch objected to the proposal for a number of reasons, one being that the scheme did not appear to fulfil a number of its objectives and would be very expensive.  The guided bus scheme was approved at a public inquiry and construction commenced.  The Cambridge-St Ives section, after many delays, is due to open sometime in 2010.  The section from the rail station to Addenbrooke’s Hospital will follow later.

 

In early 2007 the Highways Agency started its consultation on the Ellington to Fen Ditton section of the A14 and in October 2007 announced its preferred route – the Orange Route.  We had serious concerns about the effect on the landscape, on Brampton Wood, of the proposed Viaduct crossing the River Great Ouse.

 

A further chance to put comments to the Highways Agency came in January 2010 at the Draft Orders Public Consultation stage.  Our main comments were:

(1) We said the impact of the routes on the landscape will be considerable.

(2) We called for full biodiversity and landscape mitigation measures, including wider funding of projects, and a re-examination of the proposed road layout within Huntingdon, and a reduction in the proposed lighting, to ensure light pollution is minimised throughout the proposed scheme, and

(3) We called for full open and public ongoing post-completion road evaluations to be completed – these should measure the effect on the landscape, biodiversity and residents beyond the road’s immediate vicinity, study the effects on levels of carbon dioxide emissions, and analyse traffic growth to determine whether the new road is itself generating new traffic.

 

A copy of the full submission can be found here.