LETTER: Nothing sinister

Without CBT, we and most Arundel residents would have known nothing about the Department for Transport A27 feasibility study before the Government’s announcement was made in December.

CBT is very helpful and knowledgeable in its field. Its president is Michael Palin and the CBT director Stephen Joseph is on a number of Government and other national transport forums. CBT views tend to be supported by forward-thinking transport planners across the country.

In contrast, our elected representatives in the A27 Action campaign group told us very little and certainly didn’t consult with us, but claimed the vast majority in Arundel supported their plans. Residents in Arundel SCATE chose to listen to transport and ecology experts on transport and ecology issues, rather than these politicians who broadcast very uninformed and misleading ‘facts’, some of which I corrected in my last letter.

Mr Waller appears in a press photograph with A27 Action politicians at the transport secretary’s visit last year, but I draw no conclusions about his influences from this.

Mr Waller refers to CBT publishing our response to the A27 study with quotes from Arundel residents, as though we were somehow being used. However, it was our general press release and was in the Littlehampton Gazette, too! It is a little sad that he seems to find our exercising of democracy and the open community-based approach of CBT sinister.

We partnered with CPRE Sussex (Campaign to Protect Rural England) for the Arundel public meeting on Monday this week (see page 5). I wonder if he thinks they are drawing local people into a web too.

Kay Wagland, secretary, Arundel SCATE

Ford Road

Arundel

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