Better Transport

26 February: Our report on regional transport wish-lists found that south west England was obsessed with building roads instead of improving public transport. Now an influential committee of MPs has agreed.

The South-West Regional Select Committee conducted a wide-ranging examination of transport priorities across the south west. They found that while regional policies were mostly pro-public transport, local councils preferred to ignore all that and pursue their pet road projects.

The result? People in rural areas had pitiful bus services and were forced to drive everywhere, while congestion increased and CO2 emissions rose ever higher. Hardly the sort of sustainable transport network that people tell us they really want.

Thankfully there is a solution: cancel the pointless bypass schemes, like the Kingskerswell Bypass, and invest in sustainable, affordable transport. Improving the London to Exeter line, to reduce congestion on the A303, would be a start. Come on south west: what are you waiting for?

19 February: We've long argued that the models on which transport investement decisions are made are faulty. Now a major study by the Department for Transport has agreed.

I know: it's Friday, and transport modeling is about the last thing you want to read about. But it's vital that transport professionals use accurate models, because they form the basis for all their decisions. Bus scheme or road? Tram or cycling? The model will tell you.

Earlier this year we published a report which showed that the Highways Agency's forecasting was totally innacurate. We said then that the Government needed to stop spending so much on road building until it could show that the models were accurate: i.e. that the impact on local people would be as predicted.

Now Denville Coombe, a well respected consultant, has produced his report for DfT, which found that just one in four regional and sub-regional models could predict the impact of highway schemes and one in seven for public transport!

Hardly a reliable basis for spending billions of pounds, is it? You can read Coombe's report online (be warned, it's pretty techie!).

15 February: We've written to Lord Adonis, warning him that preventing a public inquiry into the Postwick Hub - phase one of the Norwich Northern Distributor Road - is likely to be unlawful.

Norfolk County Council is the highways authority for Norfolk, so they're responsible for granting planning permission for road schemes. So people in Norwich were very surprised when Norfolk asked Broadland District Council for permission to build the Postwick Hub.

The Hub, you see, is a major road scheme, complete with overbridge, major roundabouts and access to the A47 trunk road. But Norfolk dressed it up as an access road to a nearby business park.

Broadland approved the road... but it's not a highways authority, so it has no powers to grant planning permission. But then the Highways Agency published orders on Norfolk's behalf. Norfolk is fighting hard to prevent an inquiry, even though there is a presumption in law that an inquiry should take place.

As you can see, it's a complicated mess (and this is the condensed version!). That's why we, along with CPRE and CTC, the national cyclists' organisation, have written to Lord Adonis asking him to call the whole thing in for an inquiry.

Hopefully an independent inspector will be able to work out what's going on, because Norfolk doesn't seem to have a clue...

4 February: We keep telling the Government that building new roads will make it harder to reduce CO2. Well guess what: yesterday they admitted that we are going to miss our 2010 targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

The plan had been to cut CO2 by 20% from 1990 levels, getting a headstart on the much bigger cuts we'll need to make to avoid climate change. By the end of 2008 we'd only managed 10% cuts.

One of the main problems is that while emissions from some sectors - such as business and energy - have been declining, CO2 from road transport has risen 7% since 1990 (pdf). Even though cars and vans getting greener, CO2 is rising because we're all driving further.

This is the problem with the Government's transport strategy: they keep hoping that cars will become green enough to make up for the extra distance we're having to travel. Unfortunately this isn't going to happen any time soon (and even if it did, what about all the traffic, noise and road casualties?).

It's time to stop spending so much money on road building and start investing in more sustainable alternatives, like the affordable measures we outlined in our manifesto: Improving Everyday Transport.

3 February: Earlier this year hundreds of you objected to the £1.3 billion A14 Ellington to Fen Ditton. Now the Highways Agency has announced that there will be an public inquiry where everyone can argue their case.

This announcement wasn't really a surprise, given the number and scale of objections. But the Government has been increasingly reluctant to call road and housing schemes in so the proposals can be properly examined. This means that poorly considered schemes often sneak through because many councils simply refuse to consider proper alternatives to damaging road building.

Thankfully your objection helped us secure an inquiry into this terrible and costly scheme. We'll be fighting to make sure this inquiry sees off the Agency's disastrous plans.

18 January: We've unearthed loads of reports by the Highways Agency which prove road building is poor value for money and doesn't solve people's transport problems.

We often hear from road builders that the case for road building is rock solid. But a number of reports, commissioned by the Highways Agency, show that people who build roads cannot predict what will happen once the tarmac is poured.

We've taken the four most recent 'post-opening project evaluation' reports, where the Highways Agency has looked at a road which they built five years ago, to compare their forecasts to what actually occurred. They show that the Agency underestimated the negative impacts – such as the volume of traffic, or CO2 emissions – and over-estimated the positive impacts.

In many cases, rather than solving the problem, the bypasses we looked at just moved traffic from once place to another. So while one community had fewer vehicles travelling through it (although still had more traffic than was predicted) another one a few miles away was faced with gridlock.

Times are tough, and the Department for Transport has warned councils that big cuts will have to be made. Our report shows that road building is a costly gamble, and in this economic climate, one we can't afford to make.

11 January: Norfolk County Council is trying to get planning permission for the first stage of a major road by pretending its a small change to a minor junction.

The Postwick Hub Interchange might sound like something executives propose in 'blue sky' brainstorms, but it's the first stage in the Norwich Northern Distributor Road. If Norfolk is succesful, it would make it harder to stop the NNDR.

Although the Government has agreed in principle to fund the NNDR, there are going to be big budget cuts over the next few years. It's highly likely that the scheme will get cut, because it's hard to see how a ring-road around north-east Norwich could be a regional priority.

We think that the Hub and the NNDR shouldn't be considered seperately, which is why we've objected to Norfolk's application for planning permission. Even the Department for Transport agrees that there's no point building such an over-designed junction if - as looks likely - there's no major road to connect it to.

4 January: The Highways Agency is planning to spend £1.3 billion widening the A14, and wants your opinion. If you agree with us that sustainable transport would be a better investment, you have just two more days to let them know.

The plans would see a major new road carving through the Cambridgeshire countryside, with substantial road building on the surrounding roads. Not only would it massively increase CO2 emissions and traffic levels, but even after building the road it would still take longer to drive between Cambridge and Huntingdon than it did ten years ago.

Worse, transport budgets are likely to be cut severly over the next few years. Spending so much on one scheme means others - road, rail and bus, as well as flagship sustainable travel programmes - will have to be cut.

We've just finished our response, and sent it to the Highways Agency. The opportunity to have you say finishes on Wednesday, so you still have enough time to object to these ridiculous proposals.

18 December: The Government has decided to approve the Norwich Northern Distributor Road, whilst preparing to slash the already tiny pot of money which helps get local buses up and running.

Check out my boss's blog for more details, or our recent press release.

23 November: Earlier this year we helped persuade the Government not to give the Westbury Bypass planning permission. But Wiltshire Council won't take no for an answer.

Normally this is the end of the matter, because you can't build a road without planning permission. But the council's performance director, Sharon Britton, thinks otherwise. When council officials meet tomorrow, she plans to tell them that the Government's comprehensive refusal to grant planning permission has merely "put back the implementation of this project".

Thankfully there's no money for the daft road, because it's been reallocated to the vital Swindon-Kemble rail upgrade. We're meeting the Local Transport Minister early next year to discuss ways to improve transport in Westbury without destroying the local environment. In the mean time, perhaps the District Auditor should investigate Wiltshire's determination to waste taxpayers' money on a scheme that cannot legally proceed.

18 November: If the Highways Agency gets its way, that A14 between Ellington and Fen Ditton will become the Fenland motorway. We're doing everything we can to stop Cambridgeshire being condemned to gridlock.

There's just over a month left to respond to the Highway Agency's draft orders, and I'm in the middle of writing my response. The scheme would cost £1.3 billion, which is loads of money, especially when councils have been told that there will be cuts in transport spending. If this scheme gets built, other ones will get the chop.

This wouldn't be too bad if the road decreased CO2 and traffic, but it won't. In the first year the HA thinks it will increase CO2 by 120,000 tonnes. It's also going to increase traffic too; so much so that journeys will still take longer in future, even with the costly road building.

So having poured over pages and pages of technical blurb, I'm left with one searing question: why would anyone want to spend so much when all they're getting is more traffic, congestion and CO2?

9 November: This week the case for the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road will be examined at a public inquiry. Here are three reasons we're working hard to get it rejected.

1. The road would destroy the Combe Haven Valley, a beautiful and treasured green space just outside Bexhill and Hastings. The valley is already designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its biodiversity and wildlife, but the road would pass straight through it. It would also increase carbon dioxide emissions.

2. East Sussex County Council has never really considered whether building a link road is the best way to improve transport on the Sussex coast. Government and regional studies have shown that what Hastings really needs is better train services, including opening a station at Glyne Gap. But if the link road goes ahead there won't be any money to improve rail or bus services for a very long time.

3. There's not enough money to pay for the road. East Sussex was supposed to raise tens of millions of pounds from developers. So far it hasn't raised a penny, so will have to find £20 million in its existing budgets to cover the shortfall. This means that other council services will suffer.

4 November: I've been working with Norfolk residents trying to stop Norfolk County Council (NCC) building a new road through north-east Norwich. The council is so determined that it won't consider whether the road is even needed.

NCC just published plans for development around Norwich, including thousands of new houses. Instead of supporting areas of proposed new employment (like Norwich city centre), Norfolk has concentrated 10,000 new homes in North-East Norwich, right where they want to build the Northern Distributor Road (NDR).

They claim that the housing can't go ahead without the NDR, but they've never considered whether better public transport would fit the bill - or whether building all their homes in an area without decent buses or trains is a good idea.

Even the Department for Transport is unconvinced, and has asked Norfolk to show what other transport options they've considered. The council responded by refusing to build any new homes until the DfT agrees to fund the road. It's such a stitch up!

Next month the local group and I are meeting DfT officials to show them just how dodgy the whole thing is. We have to make sure that they aren't taken in by Norfolk's bluster.

30 October: I've just heard that money once earkmarked for the Westbury Bypass could be spent upgrading rail links between Swindon and Kemble. Sounds sensible to me.

The Westbury Bypass was one of those roads which was just a bad idea: massive landscape impacts, on the wrong side of the town and doing very little about congestion along the A350. So we cheered when the inspectors listened to us and refused it planning permission earlier this year.

But we don't think the South West should lose out on much needed investment. The rail line between Swindon and Kemble is single-track, which slows down journeys because trains can't pass each other freely. Sorting this out should always have been a priority, not building a tarmac turkey right under the iconic white horse of Salisbury Plain.

27 October: Over the next two months, the Department for Transport will be deciding whether to approve the Norwich Northern Distributor Road. We're working hard to make sure that the scheme doesn't get approved.

Norfolk County Council, on the other hand, is still dragging its feet. The Department for Transport has repeatedly asked what other schemes it considered before decided to build the road. NCC is supposed to have done this work several years ago, so showing its working ought to be a simple matter: if, that is, it ever looked at any other options.

Now the council is trying to hurry up the Postwick Hub, which is really the first phase of the distributor road. The Government has said it will fund the Hub if the NDR gets the go-ahead, but warned that this is anything but certain.

Norfolk is piling on the pressure to get the Hub started early, so we wrote to the Minister for Planning, John Healey, asking him not to give in to their demands. We're pretty sure that he'll agree with us that there's no need to rush, especially as DfT will have decided whether to approve the road by the end of the year.

13 October: The Committee on Climate Change's first annual report shows how reducing our carbon footprint will take more than just making cars a bit greener. We have to stop building roads and start investing in public transport.

The CCC looked at our work on regional transport spending and agreed that building new roads makes it harder to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead the committee proposed integrating transport and planning, so that developments are designed around public transport, walking and cycling instead of forcing people to drive.

The committee were really supportive of smarter choices too. Interestingly their report confirmed what we've been saying for some time: no matter what we do, we can't keep driving further and hoping for the best. Total vehicle kilometres will have to fall, even if we're all driving cleaner cars.

So now we know what needs to be done to clean up transport's emissions. It's time for the Government to start making the right choices - and up to us to make sure that they do so.

The committee's report, on its website

9 October: Ministers have decided to fund the Bexhill-Hastings link road. They're ignoring their own studies which show that better rail links are what's really needed.

The road is supposed to attract inward investment, helping to regenerate the area. But local campaigners and even Government studies have shown that building a road is not the best way to achieve this: improving rail links would make Hastings and Bexhill much more attractive.

The scheme has also doubled in cost, from £45 million to just shy of £100 million. Add to that the local authority's failure to secure any developer contributions and you're looking at some very poor financial management. Waving through schemes whose costs have skyrocketed like this when we're supposed to be tightening our collective belt sends a terrible message to councils up and down the country.

Cancelling this scheme and investing in alternatives would have shown that this Government took climate change and the recession seriously; instead they're ducking the difficult decisions and locking in car dependency instead of giving people real choices about how they want to get about.

October 1: Today the Infrastructure Planning Commission opens its doors for business. It looks set to shut down the few opportunities local people have for influencing what gets built near them.

It's not all bad: the National Policy Statements, which are Parliamentary-sanctioned declarations of what the Government wants to see built where, at last mean someone is going to look at our transport networks in the round (rather than just letting it all happen piecemeal).

But amongst other retrograde steps the IPC removes the right of local people to cross-examine witnesses, which we've used to great effect to discover errors and false assumptions in plans to build new roads. Last month a number of our local campaigners and I met with the IPC, and ask them how they planned to deal with situations like the Mottram-Tintwistle Bypass, where the flaws in the Highways Agency's modelling only came to light under examination at a public inquiry.

Of course, only time will tell just how big an impact the new planning regime will have, but it feels to me like the IPC will erode what little trust people have in the planning system. Rather than speeding up the process, it's likely to lead to more protests - like the Archway Inquiry in the 1970s, from which my boss, Stephen Joseph, and many others, were dragged from in protest at its undemocratic nature, and which contributed to the overhaul of the planning system and the introduction of lots of new rights (which the IPC has just taken away).

30 September: Despite being told that there was no money for the Hereford Outer Distributor Road, Herefordshire Council has refused to accept that it won't get built.

Earlier this year the Department for Transport kicked the Hereford Bypass out of the West Midland's transport wish list, agreeing with us that the scheme was neither deliverable nor a particularly good way of meeting the city's transport problems. Officials suggested that Herefordshire Council might like to look at some more sustainable transport interventions instead.

Fast forward several months and you'd be forgiven for expecting that a flurry of new plans would be underway. Instead the council has continued working up its plans for a bypass. They've just published a report looking into various options for the bypass - basically a selection of different routes.

Like many councils, Herefordshire is so wedded to its pet bypass that it's unwilling to even consider other options - even when told that no one will pay for it. It's time the council faced reality, dropped the bypass and started doing something about Hereford's traffic problems instead of wasting taxpayers' money on a pipe dream that will never happen.

28 September: Councillors in Norfolk are threatening to "knock heads together" to get the Department for Transport to build its northern distributor road. Ministers must not give in to these playground antics.

Last summer Norfolk submitted a business case for a new distributor road to the north of Norwich. The road would link the Rackheath eco-town to Norwich International Airport, leading the Greater Norwich Development Partnership (GNDP) to describe the £127m road scheme as "an integral part of our plans to improve the local public transport network and reduce reliance on the private car" (!)

Luckily the Department for Transport saw through this, and some time ago demanded that Norfolk explain in more detail which options they looked at before deciding on a road scheme. Councils are supposed to look at all sorts of different options, including non-road ones, and choose whichever best fits their objectives. It's something the county council clearly failed to do, as, several months later, DfT has writen to them yet again asking for their evidence.

Unperturbed, the chairman of the GNDP has decided to send a delegation to London, telling the local paper that he would "knock heads together"and sort out "the pointy heads at the DfT" who are delaying his road.

Now I don't know about you, but I can't see DfT's decision makers being particularly happy about being insulted in the Norfolk press; especially as the only thing holding up the NDR is the county council. The Government's guidance is very clear: councils shouldn't decide to build a road and then twist all the facts to suit, as Norfolk has so clearly done. If the NDR is not built, the blame lies squarely at their door.

8 September: The AA's report shows that congestion on the A14 has been dropping sharply. Can we cancel the widening now?

It's not all good news though: the AA believes that the drop in traffic jams (down 31% between 2006 and 2007, 23% between 2008 and 2007 and a further 22% between 2009 and 2008) was caused by the recession: fewer people driving to work, and a marked decrease in HGVs. Not something to crow about.

But imagine if the Government took this opportunity to lock in more sustainable travel instead of spending £1.2 billion building a new six-lane road. They could invest in better rail freight to take HGVs off the road; make sure new developments have public transport from the get-go and ensure that businesses are doing their bit to help us get to work without our cars.

£1.2 billion isn't chicken feed; if there really is that much money up for grabs (and given the recession, it's doubtful) then it should be invested in sustainable transport, not wasted on the crazy Fenland Motorway.

7 September: Congestion has fallen sharply through the recession, but traffic has only dropped slightly, which shows that small changes can have big impacts.

The AA and Trafficmaster have just published a survey of congestion across the UK. They found that congestion has fallen 31% over two years - enough to unclog even the most notorious of traffic jams. But while congestion is down by a third, traffic has only taken a little dip: according to the Department for Transport, we drove 3.3% fewer miles in the first quarter 2009 than we did back in 2007.

That slight drop in traffic has a big impact because once roads get busy, a few extra vehicles can cause major problems. That's why we're so keen on 'smarter choices' programmes: a few people changing how they travel means we don't have to spend a fortune on damaging and costly road building.

Interestingly the AA rated road works, weather, collisions and the volume of traffic as more important causes of traffic jams than 'pinch points'. Does this mean they'll stop campaigning for wider roads and start lobbying for fewer rain clouds?

31 August: Tomorrow's fuel duty rise won't be popular - unless the Government spends it on public transport.

The latest fuel duty increase isn't much - 2p on a litre which costs an average of £1.05 - but it's raised a lot of hackles. A concerted campaign by the motoring lobby has persuaded people that Britain's motorists are paying too much.

This is pretty far fetched: the cost of motoring has been falling steadily, down 13% since Labour came to power, while the cost of other modes has risen sharply: buses are 17% more expensive and trains 7% in real terms.

If we want people to drive less then we have to reverse this trend. It's right that motoring taxes go up, but we have to give people real alternatives. It's no good charging drivers if there's no other way of getting around.

Investing in public transport is popular, affordable and, crucially, sustainable. It's time the Government showed it was serious about tackling congestion and climate change, and allocated a portion of motoring taxes for public transport.

29 July: Campaigning against road building can feel like a struggle, so I'm excited that the DfT has kicked 21 schemes off its books.

Fighting roads can make you feel a bit like Sisyphus: just when you think the fight is over the road reappears and you have to start all over again. Consider the Hereford Bypass: defeated at public inquiry in the 1990s, it lay dormant for years before sneaking into the West Midlands RFA.

But last week the Department for Transport threw open its drawers full of rotten schemes and started having a clear out. 21 schemes were sent to the shredder, including the A120 Braintree to Marks Tey (designed to increase the number of lorries using the road), the Melton Mowbray Bypass and the aforementioned Hereford Bypass.

That these schemes were still on the books (and not on the ground) is testament to the hard work and diligence of local campaigners, who asked enough questions (like "what is this scheme for?" and "how much will it really cost?") that the promoters couldn't just wave them through.

Encouragingly, it also shows that the Department is slowly accepting that roads aren't always the solution. Let's hope they keep thinking that way, because there are plenty of other schemes around the place which are equally deserving of fiscal euthanasia.

That list in full:

• A303/A358 South Petherton to M5 Taunton
• A40 Gloucester Bypass

• A509 Isham to Wellingborough Improvement
• Pleasley Bypass
• A6003 Caldecott Bypass
• A617 Glapwell Bypass
• Shirebrook Link
• Melton Mowbray Bypass
• A6 Kibworth Bypass
• Syston Eastern Bypass
• Completion of Lutterworth Western Relief Road
• Wymeswold Bypass
• Sharnford Bypass
• A45 Stanwick-Thrapston Dualling

• A47 Blofeld to North Burlingham
• A120 Braintree to Marks Tey

• A109/A1067 Seaton Burn Junction
• A19/A189 Moor Farm Junction

• Longbridge Link Road
• Stourport Relief Road
• Hereford Outer Distributor Road

24 July: The Transport Select Committee's latest report agreed with us that spending motoring taxes on public transport would help tackle public mistrust about green taxes.

Most people don't mind paying taxes, provided they see some real benefits: better hospitals and schools, or more frequent buses and trains. But the Government has always objected to ringfencing motoring and other green taxes, choosing instead to pour the money into general spending.

But people aren't convinced, which is why we told the committee earlier this year that the Government should spend money it has raised from motoring to give people alternatives to their cars. It's common sense really: if you have to drive to work you'll resent paying taxes for the priviledge, but if you driving pays for other people to take the bus or tram then that's fairer for everyone.

The solution is simple: the Government should be honest with people about how much it's raising from drivers, and make sure that a good portion of that cash goes on public transport to break the cycle of car dependency.

22 July: The Government has just approved billions of pounds worth of transport schemes – the majority new roads – but it is writing cheques it knows can't be cashed.

Last Summer the Department for Transport asked each English region for a wish-list of transport schemes. The regions could have chosen to fund rail, bus, walking, cycling or tram schemes, but overwhelmingly opted for road building projects. To make matters worse, the schemes are mostly a reheated list of out-of-date schemes which won’t solve transport problems and will just increase CO2 emissions.

Since then it has become obvious that big budget cuts will have to be made. But the Government has decided to rubberstamp the lists, even though it knows that there isn't the money to pay for them, so local councils will spend millions on schemes which will never see the light of day. The tough decisions are being delayed until the next spending review, after the election.

This really isn't on; these road schemes should never be built, but the Government should tell councils the truth – that these schemes are terrible value for money and will never get funding – and let them get on with working up alternatives. Instead it is leading them down the garden path, while traffic gets worse and worse and no one does anything about it.

July 22: Over the past week or two local residents opposing the Kingskerswell Bypass have been fighting at public inquiry to stop the road getting planning permission. Here's four reasons not to build it.

1. The road would cost £130 million, which would be better spent improving capacity on the local rail network in Exeter, opening new rail stations at key locations (including in Kingskerswell), installing new public transport links between employment, education and residential areas and increasing the frequency of the Exmouth line service by providing passing loops.

2.  The bypass would increase CO2 emissions in the local area by 18%, as well as encourage more people to drive, increasing traffic on local roads which will just become more congested. That's why 2,000 local people signed a petition against it.

3. There are great alternatives. Fantastic local campaigners engaged consultants Steer Davis Gleave to work up some options, and they came up with a comprehensive package including re-opening Kingkerswell station, promoting walking and cycling and introducing 'tidal lanes'.

4. The 4 lane, 70mph road would send thousands of vehicles within 200m of the historic church and village causing noise, pollution and visual blight, open up Kerswell downs and the green field valleys within Torbay to future development and threaten County wildlife parks, 2 scheduled ancient monuments, a rare and fragile limestone grassland habitat and an historic conservation area.

We won't know the results of the public inquiry for several months, but let's hope the inspector sees sense and rejects this crazy scheme. 

July 15: I've just read the Welsh Transport Strategy, and discovered that the Welsh Assembly has finally stopped plans to build an M4 toll road around Newport.

The scheme trebled in price since 2004, and carried a £1 billion price tag. Local people pointed out that it wouldn't reduce congestion but just encourage people to commute from Newport to Cardiff and Bristol, as well as destroying a uniquely beautiful area called the Gwent Levels.

This is a great victory for the Campaign Against The Levels Motorway who've not just been fighting the scheme, but also putting forward practical proposals to reduce traffic throughout south Wales.

The Assembly must have been listening because it's recommended improving public transport and making best use of existing roads around Newport, which is expected to reduce traffic on the M4 by 11% without the need for expensive road building.

6 July: We asked esteemed transport professor Phil Goodwin to think about how we'd tackle congestion on motorways, and he's discovered that even the most outrageous plans for road widening would still leave us stuck in traffic.

The problem, he found, is not just that widening motorways generates traffic (although that's a serious issue in itself) - it's that most of the congestion is in towns and cities. There's no point in making a motorway wider if the surrounding roads are chock-a-block, because cars will just speed along the motorway and grind to a halt as soon they try and leave.

In fact the only way to speed up trips on the motorways is to tackle all the shorter trips - junction hopping - and to provide alternatives so that people don't feel they have to drive everywhere.

The Government is just launching 14 'corridor studies' which will decide the future of our transport network. We'll be showing them our report, and persuading them that they should be as tough on the causes of congestion as they are on congestion itself.

2 July: We've been fighting the Westbury Bypass for years, and the Government has just rejected its application for planning permission. This shows that is no longer acceptable to force through destructive roads in the face of concerted local opposition.

The case for bypasses is always spurious but Westbury Bypass took the biscuit: it would have put a road just below the famous White Horse of Salisbury Plain, diverting cars and HGVs through open countryside while doing nothing about traffic problems in the area.

At the public inquiry Wiltshire Council had to constantly revise their plans to try and justify the scheme, finally resorting to forcing lorries on a massive detour (because otherwise they wouldn't have bothered using the bypass at all).

But the inspector saw through them and conclusively rejected the bypass, arguing that the landscape impact was too high, and, crucially, that the traffic levels weren't enough to justify it. He also agreed with local campaigners that it would have caused problems for other communities along the A350.

We've never denied that Westbury had some traffic problems, but building a £30 million bypass and destroying the countryside was never an option. This decision should send a shiver down the spines of road builders, because spells the end of roads getting waved through regardless of whether they are needed or how much damage they would do.

25 June: A recent Government report has found that bypasses tend to have way more traffic on them than expected - and cost a lot more too.

After a road is built, the Highways Agency carries out a 'post-opening project evaluation' to check whether its predictions about a road were correct. The agency has just looked at a bunch of these evaluations and found - you guessed it - its predictions were way off:

• In 60% of cases, there was more traffic on the bypass and the old route than had been predicted
• In 40% of cases, there were over 25% more vehicles on the old (bypassed) route than expected

This shouldn't come as a surprise - we've known for years that road building generates traffic - but what's really damning is just how poor the Highways Agency is at working out what the impacts of road building will be.

So why are bypasses still being considered around Shrewsbury, Manchester, Westbury and elsewhere

16 June: I know there's a recession on - and that budgets at all levels of Government are tight - but why is everyone so keen to cut projects to improve urban spaces?

The South West Regional Development Agency - a panel of unelected business interests - has just cut a number of high-profile projects to improve the public realm. Meanwhile they are pushing ahead with a number of terrible road schemes, including the Weymouth Relief Road, Westbury Bypass and Kingskerswell Bypass.

Public realm projects are all about reducing the impact of traffic, planting trees, redesigning high streets to be more pedestrian-friendly and generally making towns and cities nicer places to be.

So why are these projects - which can turn around our struggling high streets, already under threat from out-of-town shopping centres - being cut, while the South West is spending millions on roads that will increase traffic and further the decline of public spaces?

8 June: Councils in Manchester want to scrap their walking, cycling and road safety schemes to fund an assortment of costly and unnecessary road schemes, as we told the Guardian today.

Earlier this year we reported how the Mottram-Tintwistle bypass was rejected from the North West’s transport wish list. When, days later, the Highways Agency announced that it was pulling out of the public inquiry, we thought that the scheme – which would have put a dual carriageway through the Peak District National Park – was finally going to be laid to rest.

But Tameside Council was determined to get its bypass, and together with other councils across Greater Manchester, dreamed up a monstrous funding proposal. The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities decided to raise council tax and pilfer 40% of their combined local transport budgets to fund six major infrastructure projects, four of them road schemes.

Money that was supposed to be spent on travel plans, road safety schemes, public transport and measures to get people walking and cycling would instead be wasted on the Mottram Bypass, the Stockport Bypass, the Wigan Inner Relief Road and the Ashton Northern Bypass.

This is bad enough, but we're worried that if the Manchester package goes ahead, other councils will want in on the action. It's a very real threat: transport budgets will tighten while we're in a recession, and councils that can't fund their road schemes will be looking for 'creative' ways to get funding. So it’s really important that we stop this idea in its tracks, which is why we wrote to the local transport minister, Paul Clark, asking him not to approve this funding package.

If you agree, why not take a minute to send a quick note [Editor's note: action now closed], asking for the scheme to be rejected. And if you live in Greater Manchester, why not drop your councillor a line, telling him or her you don’t want money already allocated for road safety and congestion-busting squandered on road schemes?

20 May: Despite our best efforts, the Government has just signed the contract to widen the M25 - even though the costs have already skyrocketed.

A year ago this was supposed to cost £5 billion and would have widened four sections. Then, with your help, we persuaded Ruth Kelly to implement hard-shoulder running on two of the four sections, which would have saved a fair amount of money.

But since then the costs of the M25 scheme have skyrocketed, and it's now expected to cost £6.2 billion to widen just two sections. It's an extraordinary increase at a time when Government departments are supposed to be cutting back on public spending because of the credit crunch.

The whole deal really winds me up - not least because we know that people want better, cheaper public transport, not road schemes. Bringing regulated rail fares in line with the European average would, for comparison, cost just £500 million. Surely that would have been better value for money than this bloated tarmac turkey?

8 May: I've been spending lots of time recently getting my head around the Westbury bypass. This week I met with some of the campaigners against the bypass to help them deliver a postcard to Hazel Blears, who's considering granting the road planning permission.

Stephen Joseph, our director, joined the hundreds of residents who've written messages to the Secretary of State, asking her not to approve the road. There were so many that there wasn't enough space on this giant postcard for them all to fit. Here's hoping that Blears listens to reason and doesn't approve this monsterous scheme.

30 April: I've just come back from facilitating a meeting between campaigners from Camp Bling and the heads of Southend Council. The group is celebrating - because they've stopped a £25 million road scheme.

Southend Council wanted to build a dual carriageway through Priory Park, the burial site of an East Saxon king, felling 11 trees in the process. This was expected to save just 15 seconds - a crazy waste of money and pointless destruction of green space.

The group decided on a two-pronged approach, with Parklife fighting the scheme through the planning and funding process and setting up Camp Bling on the land under threat. They stuck it out for three-and-a-half years, the longest road protest site in England, despite arson attempts, cold winters and bleak, rainy summers.

But yesterday's news is welcome relief, and after some much-needed celebrations comes the painstaking process of taking down the site. At the meeting the group and councillors agreed that they'd be off the site in a couple of months, leaving it as they found it. The council plans to turn the land into a memorial garden planted with native species from Saxon times.

22 April: The 2009 Budget may have been hyped as the greenest ever, but it was nothing like the kickstart we had hoped for.

Just last week we wrote to the Government and laid out our thoughts on how local transport could contribute to some pretty major greenhouse gas cuts, and we had hoped that the Chancellor might have mentioned some of our measures. Some, like a major boost for highway maintenance, would have kept thousands of people in steady jobs and others, like lower rail fares, would have kept people from being priced off the railways.

The Government is focused on expensive 'capital intensive' projects, like road building, which cost lots but employ relatively few people. We know that loads of great projects which would reduce CO2 lose out, so we're proposing a carbon reduction fund (PDF, 64k) which would allocate money to local councils and businesses to spend on low-carbon pilots or any manner of schemes to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

We think that the Government should use the downturn to boost the green economy. If you agree, why not drop your MP an email and asking for bigger investment in sustainable transport?

16 April: The Government is betting that electric vehicles are the solution to transport's rising carbon footprint. I'm not so sure: where's all the electricty coming from, and will the National Grid be able to cope?

Electric cars aren't 'carbon neutral': you still have to make the electricity that powers them. The Government may like to talk up its plans for renewables, but it's trying to build new coal-fired power stations up and down the UK. CO2 emissions from electric cars running on coal are unlikely to be much better than petrol or diesel cars - especially if you factor in the energy it takes to make them in the first place.

Last year we commissioned research into low-carbon transport. This found that electrifying the 26 million cars in the UK could increase the amount of energy we'd need by a factor of four! Somehow I can't see that all coming from renewables.

It's such a pity, because for the £250 million this programme will cost we could have invested in all sorts of great, low-cost packages, like car clubs, walking and cycling and public transport. It looks like the Government's great strategy is just a bail out for the car manufacturers dressed up in greenwash.

7 April: After months of campaigning, we’ve finally persuaded the Government to change how it decides whether transport schemes are good value for money or not.

There are loads of possible solutions to transport problems, so the Government designed a framework to help local authorities weigh up which scheme might offer the best value for money. In theory they would look at all the different factors: comparing whether the scheme would reduce congestion, make an area more accessible or reduce greenhouse gas emissions to how much it would cost to build. In practice, roads always came out best, justifying damaging road schemes.

Put simply, the old framework relied too much on journey time savings, but did not distinguish between a handful of people saving a decent amount of time and a lot of people saving far less time. It also put time savings above reliability. Both we and the Government know that people are more concerned about being on time rather than getting there slightly faster.

We persuaded the Government to take carbon dioxide emissions more seriously. Under the old method transport schemes, driving further always outweighed the carbon cost. This is because the old system counted the revenue from fuel duty as a benefit, and one which was around five times more than the cost of the CO2 emitted! Thus, schemes which helped drivers reduce their fuel consumption – like ‘green wave’ projects – fared badly, even though they reduced our carbon footprint.

This new system isn’t perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction. It should make it easier to show how much better public transport and small-scale, demand management projects are at tackling transport problems than just building more and more roads everywhere and hoping the traffic goes away.