Great news!

'Grey' Arundel Bypass Scheme Cancelled!

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in Parliament on 29.7.24 the findings of the government policy paper, "Fixing the Foundations: public spending audit 2024-25".  "The government is cancelling ... the A27 schemes.  These are low value, unaffordable commitments".  

Cancellation of the A27 Arundel Bypass delivers on the one major road scheme, the worst value, most damaging and most unpopular, which managed to get mentioned in any parties' Manifestos for the July 2024 national election.   

ABNC Secretary Dr Emma Tristram commented same day to the press, "The Grey route would have gone through two villages and badly affected another, and would have ruined a huge area of countryside bursting with wildlife.  There is a smaller-scale scheme suggested by local people, the Arundel Alternative, which National Highways has never taken seriously, which could be looked at again.  But any solution which makes more space for cars is the wrong way forward, because of climate change."

This cancellation marks a return of sanity.  The cancelled Arundel Bypass scheme may have been budgeted at £320M, but has been appraised as likely to have costed up to £1.2 Bn if it had gone ahead, including the cost of the proposed viaduct. And that's on top of the dreadful costs to community, biodiversity and climate.  All to save just a questionable few minutes until the road clogs up again.    A different approach is needed.

In the meantime we wait to hear confirmation that the consequence of cancellation will be removal of planning protection from the line of the designated Preferred Route, so that residents and businesses can be spared any further Arundel Bypass Grey Route blight.  Once the Grey Route is not just dead but also buried, any future review of congestion or structural issues in the area will be free to take a genuinely fresh, practical and responsible approach. 

We also wait to hear signs of real culture change in National Highways, which needs to learn some lessons in accountability, honesty and service to the full breadth of the public interest.  They have acted in their own and their construction partners' interests as a stand alone road building company.  But they are in fact a roads management company owned by all citizens, whose interests are not limited to the building of roads.  National Highways must now explicitly, if belatedly, change.  Its citizen owners deserve to see a completely different ethical, social and environmental responsibility culture.

How did we get here?  What happens next?

Consultations Feedback

National Highways - NOT working for you!

You can write to a27arundelbypass@nationalhighways.co.uk . 

Here's a few key points - for more help click here.

1. Say that you object to the Grey route altogether, and why.  They ask that we only respond to their latest tweaks, but if we do that, they will claim that fewer people are objecting to the route as such.

2. It cuts through the villages of Tortington and Binsted and causes more traffic in Walberton and Fontwell.   It would ruin the beauty and tranquillity of river Arun walks and the setting of Arundel, the Binsted Rife valley and the setting of the South Downs National Park.   It would sever a huge, important wildlife area of 'exceptionally rich biodiversity' (Natural England).  

3. It will bring nothing but more peak traffic and more congestion to Worthing, Chichester and villages and towns in between.  

4. National Highways are still mentioning an old budget figure of £320M+.   This is well out of date and costs must now be more likely to approach or exceed NH’s earlier top range estimate figure of £1.2Bn:  Either way it is not the best use of that much public money when there are other higher priority needs.  It fails to consider the much shorter and more economical Arundel Alternative which is an appropriate 21st century solution.

5. Building an 8Km new road will incur an enormous carbon footprint in construction, and in its use it would encourage people to take longer, faster and more frequent car journeys.  This is not compatible with government and global net zero objectives.

Please click here for more info about the consultation, and help with responding.

ABNC (which stands for Arundel Bypass Neighbourhood Committee) is an environmental community pressure group, concerned about the impacts of road-building proposals around the Arundel A27 in West Sussex.  We have been working for 30 years to save the countryside south and south-west of Arundel from major new road damage. Based in Binsted and surrounding villages, and funded by local people's donations, ABNC has a core organizing committee, a wider network of local volunteers across several parishes, and a mailing list of more than 6000 supporters. 

The villages of Binsted, Walberton, Fontwell, Tortington; the wildlife of Binsted Woods, and wetlands from the iconic floodplain south of Arundel to the Binsted Rife Valley, are all under threat from the impacts of National Highways' proposals. The Arundel Bypass proposals also raise issues of international importance:  climate change and species extinctions.

You can find ABNC also on Facebook and on Twitter.   We work with environmental and transport organization partners including the South Coast Alliance for Transport and the Environment, Transport Action Network and the South Downs Network. 

Together with local community environmental groups ArundelSCATE (www / FB /TW), whose Arundel Alternative proposal we support; Walberton Friends & Neighbours ( Facebook & Twitter), and Tortington Local Community, we are the Stop the Arundel Bypass Alliance (SAB Alliance - FB & TW).