Better Transport

While the public inquiry is important, it is not the be-all and end-all. If your inquiry won't be held for a while, don’t make the mistake many local groups do and base your campaign around it. Instead aim to stop the scheme at the early stages.

The Government or council will always try to persuade you to 'wait to make your views known at the inquiry'. Do not get seduced into this trap. The earliest days are the most important. By the time of the inquiry the scheme will have already progressed a long way.

Decide whether it's worth it
It is important to realise right away that very few road schemes have been rejected by public inquiry. Road schemes are much more likely to be stopped through political pressure or because the scheme has become unaffordable.

The main reason some people are cynical about inquiries into Highways Agency schemes is that the Government both proposes the scheme and decides whether to approve it!  With an inquiry around a local authority scheme, there is more separation because the promoter, the council, is not also the approver (the Government).

However there have been a few schemes rejected at inquiry so when you reach this stage of your campaign, you may decide it is worth putting energy in.  In August 2007, the inspector into the Thames Gateway Bridge recommended rejection of the scheme (but the Government has refused to accept his finding and ask for a new inquiry) - so inquiries can be won! However in this example objectors had £60,000 to hire experts to fight the inquiry.

The other side will take the public inquiry very seriously, and will plough in hundreds of thousands of pounds to prepare for and present at it. Such vast expenditure perhaps shows that they are aware that they could actually lose the inquiry.

Tactics before the inquiry
Tactics during the inquiry

It can certainly be worthwhile to put effort into a public inquiry. Our work at the Thames Gateway Bridge public inquiry resulted in some good recommendations from the inspector.