Transport Action Network has lodged a legal challenge at the High Court to the government’s decision to approve the £1bn A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet improvement scheme, which is part of the cancelled Oxford-Cambridge Expressway.
Skanska was awarded a £507m main works contract by National Highways in March 2021 to design and build the new 10-mile dual carriageway between Cambridge and Milton Keynes. The development consent order was signed by then secretary of state for transport Grant Shapps in August, just a couple of weeks before he lost his job.
Skanska states on its website: “Our aim is to be the leading green contractor and developer.”
According to environmental campaigners, the £1bn road is one of the highest carbon emitting schemes in RIS2. National Highways’ figures show that the total additional carbon emissions from the extra traffic and its construction will be more than 3.5 million tonnes. This makes the scheme the third largest emitting of the 50 schemes in the roads programme.
It is also claimed that, with spiralling construction costs, the economic case for the road looks weak.
Transport Action Network’s legal case focuses on the failure to assess climate impacts at a regional or local level. It is also challenging the need for the road and the failure to implement existing environmental policy, which will see the loss of hedgerow habitat.
This legal challenge is now the fourth against government approval for nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) in the roads programme. The approval for the A303 Stonehenge scheme was successfully challenged in the High Court, whilst the government backed down on a challenge to approve the A38 Derby Junctions scheme. There are currently two outstanding legal challenges to two A47 schemes in Norfolk that have yet to be heard.
Last month chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng revealed, in his Growth Plan statement, that the government intends to scrap these sort of environmental rules and make it harder for scheme opponents to launch legal challenges. Whether there is support from across enough of the Conservative Party for such a move remains to be seen. Many Conservatives consider themselves to be guardians of the countryside.
Transport Action Network is once again represented by law firm Leigh Day and has set up a crowdfunding website to raise funds to cover its costs.
Chris Todd, director of Transport Action Network, said: “Building new roads is an inefficient way of growing the economy, while causing untold environmental damage. It diverts scarce public funds away from more effective measures, so could actually slow down growth.
“The A428 is one of the biggest climate busting schemes in the government's roads programme. Yet the impact on regional and local carbon targets has been completely ignored. Similarly, before Liz Truss’s government has reformed environmental protections we are seeing existing policy sidelined. It would seem that the attack on nature has already started.
“The scheme represents a trebling of road capacity for much of its length, an expansion that is totally unwarranted. It will increase traffic on the surrounding road network, undermining the economy while driving up emissions. Given that we need to ‘use our cars less’, it’s madness to be building new roads that increase traffic.”
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