Road protest in the United Kingdom
Early actions, such as the response to the 1970s London urban motorway proposals, tended to be based on local environmental and social issues.
Some of the local "NIMBY" issues could be mitigated through the scheme proposer making concessions to access and small changes to routing, while increasing the levels of compensation would sometimes quieten objections and smooth the passage of a public enquiry.
[2] Since the 1980s much wider social and environmental concerns have been called into question; policy changed to allow environmentalists to be increasingly involved over the loss of wildlife and its habitat.
The Westway enquiry in the early 1970s affected affluent inhabitants of West London who were able to afford representation by professional transport planners.
Recent protests have had supporters from not just the local area but diverse communities including New Age travellers, environmentalists, and the rural wealthy.
The first British motorway was opened in 1958 at a time when road building was central to all political party manifestos and viewed as critical infrastructure for the national economy.
[11] The benefits of each scheme within the programme would need to be validated through a thorough financial assessment and planning process in accordance with HM Treasury's Green Book.
to act as a central, umbrella organisation which supplied local groups with information on transport, environmental and campaigning matters and to stage occasional nationwide stunts (including a "Stop That Road Week").
Although the route of cuttings had been diverted as a result of earlier representations in the planning process, proposals for a more environmentally sympathetic tunnel had been rejected on cost grounds.
[15] In 1992, the Earth Summit reported concern at rising levels of carbon dioxide emissions which was seen by the UK government as a sufficient risk to justify precautionary measures.
[24] In 1994, the year that the contentious M3 extension at Twyford Down was opened, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, comprising some of Britain's top scientists, published a report, Transport and the Environment that expressed concern about the consequences of further large-scale growth in road traffic, called expenditure on motorways and trunk roads to be reduced to about half its present level and for real investment in alternative transport modes.
[26] Both the main opposition parties (Labour and Liberal Democrat) adopted policies which promised a focusing instead on Transportation Demand Management.
[15] The Criminal Justice Act became law and created a series of new offences including peaceful protest[27] Stephen Norris was replaced by Brian Mawhinney as secretary for transport.
In 1995, the Newbury bypass was given the go-ahead in July by Brian Mawhinney half an hour before he resigned, a month after the final protesters had been evicted from the M11 camp.
[34] Rebecca Lush founded Road Block to support a growing number of protests around the country in 2005[36] which became part of the bus and rail advocacy group Campaign for Better Transport (UK) in 2007.
