Green Peer visits threatened woodland

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, who has been a member of the London Assembly since its creation in 2000, and who came third in the London mayoral elections in 2012, takes a keen interest in transport issues, arguing for sustainability and localism. She commissioned the Transport For London report into promoting cycling that paved the way for the London Cycle-hire scheme, known as the “Boris bikes”.

Baroness Jones of Mouslecoomb is being joined by Green Party members, including European Parliamentary candidate John Knight from Macclesfield, and campaigners from PAULA (Poynton Against Unnecessary Link-roads to the Airport) for a short walk through Carr Wood & Norbury Hollow. The group will return to the garden centre café after the walk for refreshments and a discussion about the campaign.

John Knight, a Green Party European elections candidate based in Macclesfield, said: “The whole Airport Link Road scheme is ill-conceived, expensive & destructive. At a cost of £300 million, Stockport Lib Dems, Cheshire East Tories & Manchester Labour councillors want to bulldoze miles of greenbelt, including designated ancient woodland at Carr Wood, and woods at Norbury Hollow & Mill Hill Hollow. And for what? A road specifically designed to encourage more traffic by road and air, which we need to be reducing if we are to have any chance of combating climate change. A road intended also to facilitate the creation of Chancellor George Osborne’s “Airport City”, a tax-haven designed to take jobs away from communities in Stockport, Cheshire East & the High Peak, while also - ironically - scuppering any chance of the road being paid for by “Earn-back” business rates.

He continued: “All the traffic the road carries will be disgorged onto the A6 east of Hazel Grove, resulting in a projected 30% increase in cars & lorries through High Lane & Disley. The scheme’s promoters have ludicrously claimed that this can be mitigated by reducing the speed limit on the A6 to 30mph - when the limit is already 30mph for much of the journey between Hazel Grove & the Chapel-en-le-Frith bypass, and is nowhere above 40mph.”

He concluded: “Stockport, Cheshire and the North West don’t need any more of the failed transport policies of the twentieth century.  Instead of an endless cycle of building new roads, generating new traffic, and building more new roads, we need improved public transport so people can leave their cars at home. We also need strong local economies so that goods don’t have to be transported across the country - and around the world - and people don’t have to travel long distances to work.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

For a detailed critique of the A6-MARR, see “A Folly in the Making”; report commissioned by the North West Transport Roundtable and the Campaign for Better Transport -http://www.nwtar.org.uk/consultations/SEMMMSA6-ManchesterAirportRoad-NWTAR&CfBT_published_web.pdf

Jenny Jones on Twitter:https://twitter.com/GreenJennyJones

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb biography:http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/baroness-jones-of-moulsecoomb/4297