‘Bypass of a bypass’

MY heart sank to see your banner headline (Gazette, June 9) concerning the endless attempts by quangos and councils, ably assisted by our MP, to wreck vast swathes of our beautiful countryside by constructing an Arundel bypass – when there already is one, of course, clearly marked as such.
By The Newsroom
Published 20th Jun 2011, 06:19 BST

For those new to this tedious matter, Arundel’s bypass (the A27 round the west side of town) was built in 1971 to take traffic away from the town centre, which it quite effectively did for 20 or so years.

Then the road between Patching and Crossbush was greatly enlarged, leading to traffic grinding to a halt at the traffic lights at Crossbush.

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It was then envisaged that a huge motorway would swing out west, smashing through green fields and water meadows, and come out somewhere near Fontwell after demolishing vast amounts of primary woodland at Binsted.

After years of huffing and puffing, this madness was abandoned, to the immense relief of everyone with the slightest concern for our fragile environment.

The most obvious and cheapest answer, would be to carefully landscape a flyover or underpass for the Lyminster Road, removing the need for traffic lights, strengthen the railway bridge, provide a bridge for the pedestrian crossing.

Your article explains this upgrade of the existing road, but we then come to the critical part – it is “felt to be intrusive and cut the town even more in two than is currently the case.” So, stuff the environment, and cost, let’s wreck the countryside with a hugely costly bypass of a bypass.

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You quote MP Nick Herbert as saying: “There remains a strong and environmental case for an Arundel bypass” – how more wrong can you get?

“Very large numbers of people want no more bypasses of bypasses, dumping thousands of tons of Tarmac and concrete over the loveliest countryside in the south, and the environmental damage this would cause would be incalculable and entirely unacceptable.”

I think Herbert is years out of date, being concerned solely with money-making business schemes, and completely underestimating people’s desire to see our superb countryside left untouched by any more roadbuilding.

There already is a perfectly good east-west road link going nowhere near Arundel, and locals always use the A259 when they know there will be congestion there.

Richard Foster

Beech View

Angmering

Related topics:ArundelA27Crossbush