Call for release of ‘secret documents’

In late 2011/early 2012 the Undersecretary of State for Transport Norman Baker asked the Department for Transport (DfT) for its recommendations on funding the £100m Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR).

The DfT concluded that East Sussex County Council had ‘significantly overstate(d) the benefits of the scheme’, ‘double-counting productivity improvements’ and dramatically overstating the number of jobs that would be created (in reality, the £100m project will generate barely 500 local jobs). Moreover, there was a ‘significant’ risk of the BHLR achieving low value for money.

Nonetheless, the DfT’s recommendations as to whether or not to fund the project have been redacted (ie blacked-out) in the versions obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These are the secret documents.

There are good reasons to believe that the DfT recommended against the road, and that Norman Baker opposed the project but was over-ruled by the Chancellor, George Osborne.

As I write - and despite the expensive and large-scale destruction already wrought in Combe Haven - East Sussex County Council has still not received final approval for the £56m of Government funding that the BHLR requires.

Whatever people think about the road, surely everyone can agree that the public has a right to see the DfT’s recommendations regarding whether or not to the project should be funded - preferably before the money is actually approved!

This is why local residents have launched Operation Disclosure (www.operationdisclosure.wordpress.com), putting the DfT on notice that, unless these documents are released by April 5, they will enter the department to peacefully search for and distribute copies of the documents.

I will be joining them. I urge your other readers to do likewise.

Gabriel Carlyle

Address supplied

St Leonards