Bypass 2.0 - is work in progress?
Saturday, August 22, 2009

Now we were hoping to get another detailed post together about the whole 'Longdendale Integrated Transport Strategy' currently being hyped by Roy Oldham and Tameside MBC here there and everywhere, but we'll put that to one side to bring you some breaking - but linked - news instead.

It seems that TMBC are seeking interest for a tender in the construction of Bypass 2.0, and the evidence can be seen here on the publictenders.net website.

Note the details - the deadline is the end of September 2009, and the sum under the contract is £90 million.

So far, in many people's minds, it's been a little hard to take all of the pronouncements about Bypass 2.0 seriously, but this development is a big 'heads up' to all involved...

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As one farce ends...
Monday, July 27, 2009

Yes, we're back! But before NMB addicts get rather too excited, it's only because there's something worth reporting. We're now as thoroughly accustomed to not blogging as we were previously to constantly blogging. So we're sure readers will appreciate how hard it has been to write the latest post with the usual wit and humour that they may have become accustomed to (not to mention the artwork).

And it has to be said that the news won't surprise those with their fingers on the pulse.

So the first non-surprise is that the Highways Agency have finally got around to ending the farce that is the Public Inquiry. Advertisements appeared in the press last Thursday 23rd July and on the Public Inquiry website later in the day.

Of immediate interest is the power relationship inherent in the notice: note here that the respective Secretaries of State have cancelled the Inquiry. No doubt at some point the Inspector John Watson will process the formalities, but it's not his decision to make, as has been very little in this whole charade.

But the main issue here is one of costs, as we've noted all along. Exactly 4 months elapsed between the Highways Agency announcing on 23rd March of this year that they intended to withdraw and their fulfilment of that intention last week. We've already commented upon the supposed reasons for this delay (legal wranglings), but in a time of financial hardship and cut-backs we have the spectacle of a government department dragging their feet and doubtless accruing huge costs.

How much? We'll take the last cost estimate as our guide - you'll remember we blogged about it at the time. Since the costs accrued between November 13th 2008 and April 30th 2009 equated to a daily rate of £7,041.92, at that rate of reckoning, the 122 days that have elapsed since the Highways Agency's announcement of their intention to withdraw and their taking action to do so have seen the accrual in costs of a further £859,114.24 of our money.

Perhaps at some point in the near future, we'll become aware of exactly how much how this PI has cost, of how much John Watson was paid for his 15 days of sitting (out of 757 days the PI was open). But that's for another time.

Finally, there is a delicious irony in the costs of this PI. It's frankly fucking hilarious, but you'll have to take our word for it until we report back next time with our second piece of news. Ta ta for now...

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Our hiatus
Thursday, June 11, 2009

Regular readers will have noticed that for the past month, No Mottram Bypass has been very quiet. Whilst we're not going to offer a fulsome explanation for our absence, suffice it to say that the blog has become a bit of an albatross around the necks of the editorial team. 

We fully aware that there's no shortage of potential blog posts: the latest news (or lack of news) about Bypass 2.0, the resignation of both Geoff Who? and the slimy James Purnell from the government, a possible split in the pro-bypass lobby, the fact there's still no end in sight for the Public Inquiry. We could go on.

We have said before that the blog should not be an end in itself, and that informs our decision now to suspend No Mottram Bypass for the foreseeable future. To continue would be self-indulgent. We would rather this website reflects not just the news about the progress of the scheme, but also a concerted campaign against it. The latter is lacking in our view, and self-gratification does not motivate us.

We do and always have welcomed contributions from anyone who thinks they have something to say about the issues surrounding the bypass, so perhaps that's where we'll leave it for now. If you want to write a blog, or a series, or even a regular feature (as well as make a film, or contribute some art work), then all reasonable offers will be considered. But we're also sure that if, like us, you'll continue to oppose the road, that you'd much rather be in the trenches, getting your hands dirty. 

Until then, la lutta continua...

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Revealed - the cosy meeting to progress 'Bypass 2.0'
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

This week has seen the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities publish a document (opens PDF) outlining which major transport schemes will be prioritised in the region and how they will be funded. The story has hit the headlines and is in today's Manchester Evening News.

If you don't know much about the background to this report, then you'd assume the numerous references to a 'Mottram Bypass' would be shorthand for the Mottram/Hollingworth/Tintwistle Bypass, even though the latter scheme is referred to only once in the document (on page 4). Look more closely at some of the tables illustrating costs, and you'll find the 'Mottram Bypass' is described as now only costing £100 million - and you may be wondering 'what happened to the other £200 million'?

But if you take this in the context of the previous AGMA press release issued at the end of March and also the TMBC Executive meeting last month, then you'll quickly start to understand something new is on the table.

And now, we can shed more light upon exactly who has been up to what in terms of progressing this new 'Bypass 2.0' scheme. Well, almost.

First we must set down some context. On 19th March 2009, representatives from various agencies met at the Highways Agency's offices at City Tower in Manchester. The date is neatly sandwiched between the announcement of the deferral of funding for the original bypass scheme by 4NW on 12th March and the announcement by the Highways Agency that they were withdrawing from the PI on 24th March.

The purpose of the meeting was to salvage something from the 4NW decision, and the (redacted) minutes of the meeting - obtained by John Hall - can be read here.

Upon reading the minutes, it quickly becomes clear that all of the major players in the Bypass have no intention of simply dropping the plan for a road through Longdendale, whatever their public position may be. Whilst this is unsurprising for the likes of Tameside MBC, you do start to wonder what is going on when the Highways Agency play a major part, and as you read further into the minutes, you realise it is they that are playing a strange game.

The key section of the minutes lies in section 5 'Existing scheme', with paragraph 7 showing duplicity is at work with regard to the Public Inquiry (emphasis added):

"(redacted) explained that the Public Inquiry had been adjourned but was still live. A discussion took place about the potential for a Phased Inquiry based on any revised option, and it was agreed that there may be some value in exploring this, dependent on the shape of any emerging proposals"

Presumably, this anticipates that the last two years (and as yet undisclosed £X million) have been 'phase 1' which is now adjourned, and that another scheme can be drawn up and emerge in 'phase 2' when it is ready.

Looking back to March 24th, when the Highways Agency announced their withdrawal from the PI, one has to look at the wording of their statement which we emphasised at the time (again, our emphasis added):

The Highways Agency is withdrawing from the current Mottram-Tintwistle bypass Public Inquiry

We feel that these minutes are an important part of the puzzle falling into place: they demonstrate that the statements made by Alex Bywaters - the head of the Bypass project - in his email to the PI programme officer are wilfully misleading, and also that the HA have clearly not formally withdrawn from the PI yet because it doesn't suit the plans that this little crowd have for our Valley and the wider area. After all, the idea for a 'phased Inquiry' that they float means that there must be a period of transition: closing the current PI would simply be the end, and getting another PI running at a later date would clearly be much harder. It wouldn't be 'phase 2', it would simply be a second Inquiry.

One also has to note that 'alternative proposals' as described in the minutes means a road drawn up by the agencies, and not those presented to the Public Inquiry so far. The minutes go further in a section entitled 'Alternative proposals', which is clearly concerned with TMBC's 'Bypass 2.0', and makes clear the background behind AGMA's announcement in the press yesterday.

What we would be interested to learn is whether or not those individuals that had taken time and effort to propose 'alternatives' to the bypass or were due to do so at the PI (i.e. the Translink scheme for reopening Woodhead) have been invited to be present at these discussions? And if not, why not?

There's much more to these minutes than can be commented upon by us at this time (particularly the role of GMPTE, Faber Maunsell and Sir Howard Bernstein who the minutes suggest are joined at the hip), and one interesting point to note is that some of those present were due to meet the following day to progress 'Bypass 2.0'. We wonder what went on there?

Finally, there's the issue of the redacted names. There seems to be a spurious reason given for not releasing these names, so we're inviting readers to posit exactly who these people are. If this all looks plausible, at a later date, we'll amend the minutes to show who we think was there. So let's have your ideas.

This one will run and run...

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Public Inquiry - Bywaters leaps into action!
Monday, May 11, 2009

We have proof positive that the Highways Agency simply haven't been paying attention to a word the Public Inquiry Inspector says.

For the past couple of weeks, stalwart objector John Hall has been emailing Persona Associates reminding them of the wishes of the Inspector regarding the closure of the Public Inquiry (you'll remember our blog about it the other week).

Last week, the programme officer Brenda Taplin was forced to email the Highways Agency Bypass chief Alex Bywaters to get some movement. Brenda very handily passed the email, along with Bywater's reply, on to John Hall, and it's available to view here (opens PDF).

For those who don't want to open the PDF, Brenda reminds Bywaters of the Inspector's request, and stresses the urgency in a very 'scolding' manner.

Bywaters replies, portraying himself as piggy in the middle: he says that, from his end, the respective legal departments of the Treasury and the Department for Transport are 'debating' something. He then asks Brenda if the Planning Inspectorate know what's going on!

The immediate question is - does this mean that neither the people in charge of the Bypass project nor the programme officer for the PI know what's going on? On first impressions, it would seem not*.

The other observation we can make is that Bywaters has failed to update the programme officer about the reasons for the delay. She has to email him, and then only after being mithered by an objector. Bywater's closing line "I want and end to this as much as the Inspector!" is ridiculous given that Taplin has had to remind him of the Inspector's request. It would seem to us that neither of them are motivated unless prodded by someone else.

Given that this charade is currently costing more than £7,000 a day, you wonder what it will take to get someone somewhere to do something to end this farce...

*As for what the DfT and Treasury are debating - well, we'll blog about our own views on what that is in the days to come.

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New bypass cost figures - going off the rails on a gravy train
Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Remember when we told you back in March that the deferral of the bypass funding would still entail costs of £1.1 million over the next 7 years?

Well the Highways Agency have now topped that. Yesterday saw a reply in Parliament to this question placed by the Shadow Transport Minister, Robert Goodwill MP:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport with reference to the answer of 13 November 2008, Official Report, columns 1286-87W, on the Longdendale bypass, what costs have been incurred in connection with the A57/A628 Mottram to Tintwistle bypass since 13 November 2008.

Now you'll remember that 13th November 2008 was the last time Goodwill made enquiries about the cost of the scheme, which then stood at £16 million. The reply, forthcoming from Paul Clark MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, is gobsmacking:

For the period of 13 November 2008 to 30 April 2009, the A57/A628 Mottram to Tintwistle bypass scheme has incurred costs of approximately £1,176,000.

Working it out, that's 167 days (just under 6 months) - so the costs incurred since then have been £7,041.92 per day. And in the second part of his answer, Clark reveals what this has been spent on:

The costs include general project management, preparation for closure of the Public Inquiry, responding to general inquiries, project governance, staff costs, costs associated with the contract and finalising documents for the postponement of the project.

It seems to us that the phrase 'preparation for the closure of the Public Inquiry' is a bit of an abstract concept. After all, the Inspector has made it look like he has tried his best to bring the things to a close, and the Highways Agency have ignored it. Clearly the Gravy Train has no brakes, and the Government is in no mood to derail it. 

When one considers the announcements made in the Budget two weeks ago, and all the speculation regarding possible cuts to all kinds of budgets, it beggars belief that this road to nowhere is still trundling along, costing you and I nearly £300 for each hour that passes.

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What's the delay?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

You may remember back in the dark distant past - 31st March actually - the Public Inquiry Inspector issuing document X21 to the Inquiry. In the document (entitled "Possible Closure of the Inquiry"), John Watson politely requested that the Highways Agency withdraw the draft Orders, and other such legal niceties, and confirm for him the date when they planned to formally withdraw from the Inquiry. He further requested that they do so by 15th April, unless it was their intention to provide such notice "within 4 weeks of the date of this note".

Well, we heard nothing from the Highways Agency by the 15th April and 4 weeks later, no such notice is forthcoming. Once again, the Highways Agency are prepared to waste money by prolonging matters to the utter limit, a limit which the Inspector is wholly reluctant to enforce. 

Could it be that something else is going on? We'll leave you to speculate.

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Over-budget
Wednesday, April 22, 2009

We had a very interesting & suitably ironic visit today - budget day - which we'd like to tell you about.

It was a fleeting visit from renowned accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). They'd been searching the internet for the "public enquiry (sic) mottram" and landed on a blog item about the Public Inquiry.

Now this could be just a bored employee idling away some time at work, but then again, maybe someone has called the auditors in? One way or another, we'd love to find out exactly how much the Public Inquiry has cost, and how much our dear friend John Watson the Inspector has been paid for 15 days work. 

Watch this space.

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More info on "Bypass 2.0" - Tameside's sleight of hand
Thursday, April 16, 2009


Snippets of info are starting to emerge about Tameside MBC's plans for a bypass on the cheap.

Last week saw a press release about the possible scheme being published in Local Transport Today (our screen grab of the article can be viewed here). More information is amongst the agenda items for TMBC's Executive 'Cabinet' that met on 1st April (seriously!), and these can be read here (opens PDF). Regarding the bypass, this is all the info we get:

A bypass of Mottram passing to the north of the village crossing and linking to Roe Cross Road and Mottram Moor and from there along the line of the Glossop Spur to Woolly Bridge (sic)

So our prediction in a previous blog post about likely routes appears to be wrong. Instead, the route under consideration appears to be akin to the 'Grey Route', which was put forward for public consultation back in 1993, alongside the Brown Route which ended up in the shit as it were. We'd like to remind everyone why the Grey Route was rejected at that time (from the Highways Agency's history of the scheme published on the Public Inquiry website - opens PDF):

(The Grey Route) had an adverse impact on the built environment, cultural heritage, townscape and construction because it traversed most of the 'difficult' areas of poor ground conditions

Whilst not mentioning where the road will go after reaching Woolley Bridge, the maps showing all the historical routes makes clear the plan will be to forge through what is now Rossington Park en route towards Tintwistle. The plan seems to be to capitalise on opposition to Rossington Park, but how Tameside MBC, or High Peak BC for that matter, will justify subjecting the Nothern portion of Hadfield to a proto-motorway is another matter. Rossington Park is by no means a success, and there's nothing to say it will be there in years to come, unlike any new road that is constructed. 

But the second part of Tameside's plans are the most interesting: 

- A package of sustainable travel initiatives linked to the existing School Travel Plans.

- A package of public transport (bus) improvements on the bypassed/relieved roads

- Cycling and pedestrian improvements on the bypassed/relieved roads.

- A package of traffic calming/road safety and environmental street improvements on the bypassed/relieved roads,

- Selected rail station improvements

- A lorry ban for through traffic on the A628/A616 (Woodhead Pass) and the A57 (Snake Pass) which would probably require the de-trunking of the A628/A616. Possible extension of the lorry ban to the other trans-Pennine routes passing through the Peak District National Park.

- The re-opening of the Woodhead rail route for trans-Pennine freight and passenger traffic

What looks like a sweetener for a road project, may be just that. But anti-bypass activists must ignore this at their peril - it's an attempt to 'divide and rule'. By stealing the positive agenda of more than one local campaign, plus making overtures to the disaffected Peak District National Park Authority, Tameside MBC hope that everyone will forget the plan is still to build another road. And one that follows the route of the likely Eastwards extension of the M67 30-odd years ago.

Of course, there's still the issue of how this will be paid for, and this is also covered in the same minutes. But that's for another time... 

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Are Tameside MBC manipulating the Mottram traffic lights?
Tuesday, April 07, 2009

We've heard reports - and experienced ourselves - delays caused by very noticeable changes in the traffic light sequence at Mottram over the past few days. Last week saw some extremely short sequences at the traffic lights between Market Street and Stalybridge Road, leading to long delays along the A57 in either direction - one contact reported that it took 2 hours to get from Denton into Glossopdale at rush hour evening one day last week.

This week has seen the sequences reversed, with long delays for local traffic between Broadbottom and Mottram.

We've reported on this seemingly deliberate manipulation of the traffic lights once before, but it does appear to be rather extreme of late, just as the prospects of the bypass begin to look shaky, and Tameside want to build their own version.

We welcome any insight that NMB readers can provide - if you have insider insight into these matters and have evidence that it is deliberate, let us know.

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Andrew Bingham - Tweedledumber
Monday, April 06, 2009

Last week's Glossop Advertiser saw a number of all-too-familiar letters from pro-bypass fuckwits decrying the Highways Agency's decision to withdraw from the Public Inquiry. But amongst them was nestled this letter from High Peak Borough Councillor Andrew Bingham, the Tories Parliamentary Candidate for the area.

In it, Bingham paints a picture all too familiar because it's the same one painted by Tom Levitt, the man whose job he's after: the Bypass as the key to capitalist prosperity for the High Peak, representing an alleviation of all the traffic problems in the area, supported by almost everyone (none of whom can actually be bothered to officially do so). 

In our view, these non-differences between Labour and Conservative represent all that the political and economic system can offer here or anywhere else. They demonstrate the hollowness of both parties claims to an environmentally sound future where the infinite growth of markets is both necessary and desirable. Neither of them have anything to offer to anyone who believes in anything different.

You won't be surprised to learn that Bingham is as big a fan of the New Mills Torrs Hydro as is Levitt.  For us, this speaks volumes about his credibility, but we won't labour the point lest it appear to be our hobby-horse. 

Our sincere hope is that the legitimacy of the world of Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, as represented by Bingham and Levitt, is on it's way out. Since it would appear to be high likely that Bingham will replace Levitt at the next General Election, we'll be keeping our eyes on him over the coming months.

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Possible "new" bypass 2.0 routes
Friday, April 03, 2009

Despite all the fuss and brouhaha raised over the cancellation and vague "reinstatement" of plans for a bypass recently (bypass 2.0 as we'll now call it), firm details of any alternative plan for a road through Longdendale are thin on the ground. 

But as far as we're concerned, there's no harm in speculating about what any eventual plan may look like. After locating details of alternative routes considered in past years, we can now reveal the most likely locations for any new road. And wherever it goes, it's bound to stir up new dissent, perhaps even amongst those who so far have been all for it.

Leading up to 1993, a total of 7 possible routes had been considered by the Highways Agency as possible schemes. You can view a plan of them all here. This document* has a written description of each route, plus reasons for rejection, along with a potted history (opens PDF, see pages 27-30). The route that was eventually chosen after consultation was the eventually ill-fated (but aptly named) 'Brown Route', shortlisted alongside but winning out over the 'Grey Route'.

We feel pretty safe in speculating that any 'new' route for a bypass will utilise plans already drawn up in order to keep down costs, and the 7 routes identified in past years presumably represent all the viable options open to roadbuilders. So the question is, which one is now the most likely?

A good place to start is what has already been said in public, and in private as far as we know. As we've already pointed out, back in November 2008, local MPs and Roy Oldham met with Geoff Hoon, and the possibility of alternative alignments which "hugged the conurbations more closely" was discussed. James Purnell was said to have commented that "such a route would be popular with neither residents nor environmentalists".

However, one has to consider that the MPs wanted movement on the Bypass proposals and the PI that existed back at the end of last year: like the heady days of Globalised Capitalism, that situation no longer exists. Being left with a new situation, we imagine the MPs and local councillors are now starting to think about what costs less in terms of money, if not any supposed public support. 

The only point of detail that has emerged since then has been this article written by two MEN journalists which says that the new route will be "shorter". Looking again at the route plans, to our eyes there is only really one candidate which can be considered shorter than any of the other routes - that of the 'Blue route'. The bad news for the people of Tintwistle is that this route cuts around the South side of their village, leaving them surrounded by both the existing A628 to the North and the 'new' bypass to the South. It also comes a lot closer to Hollingworth than the 'Brown route' ever threatened. 

We can only surmise that Longdendale Siege members like Mike Flynn and David Moore in Hollingworth and Pat Jenner in Tintwistle will be extremely unpopular with their fellow villagers should this be the case. Rest assured, we and others will be doing our utmost to make clear to local people the implications of these plans for the area when more clarity can be obtained. 

* - as we write, this document is still available on the Public Inquiry website, but we will host the file when/if the PI website is taken offline

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The Inspector in his castle & the Inquiry that never was...
Wednesday, April 01, 2009

More interesting developments at the Public Inquiry. A new document has appeared at the Persona Website (can be found here - opens PDF) in which the Inspector, John Watson, virtually pleads with the Highways Agency & TMBC to withdraw the Draft Orders, which he considers will be the end of the Public Inquiry. What's amazing is that he's given them a 2 week deadline to get back to him. If they delay this long, that means the Inquiry will have rumbled on for 3 weeks after the HA stated their intention to withdraw. It's so much fun spending other people's money.

Watson comes across as so weak and subservient - he's not actually telling them to end the PI, instead he asks them to notify him of what they want to do. This reveals almost all you need to know about Public Inquiries. They are granted by the good grace of the State, and the State decides when they end, and even if it gives the PI a chance to conclude, it can (and frequently does) choose to ignore the 'recommendations'. 

So contrast Watson's pleadings with comments today in a letter to stalwart objector John Hall from the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate, Katrine Sporle (which you can read here in a PDF - the redacting and highlighting is ours). It is a response to a Freedom of Information request, but we feel the letter is more interesting than the information they refuse to release. 

Sporle says that the five-times adjourned Inquiry is "exceptional", and she goes further:

Indeed, I am not aware of this having occurred on any other case in recent years.

So much so that they are considering "issuing new guidance" to ensure that "all parties are fully prepared when they come to the Inquiry". She goes on to say that adjournments are necessary to ensure "natural justice" and that the Inspectorate does its best to avoid adjournments. 

Does anyone believe this crap? Individuals have had nearly two years of their lives caught up in this charade, whilst an Agency of the State has sat back and laughed. That the Highways Agency would have suffered any "injustice" had the Inspector been much more firm with them, is a joke. Sporle continues:

We will however be reviewing the handling of the inquiry to see if there are any lessons to be learned from the process and, where appropriate, we will be sharing these with the Highways Agency and others.

Hmmn, yes I imagine that will take all of 5 minutes given that the new Planning Act that we warned about last year is now the law of the land.

On a more confusing note, Sporle says that the HA have "withdrawn from the Inquiry" today. Does she know something that Watson doesn't? Or is she confusing Watson's plea to the HA with the response everyone else wants?

We know of 2 objectors who have been challenging the Inspector over the previous past months as to the legality of the Inquiry. It's noticeable that no criticism has been levelled at Watson by supporters of the Bypass. They have tended to voice their 'frustration' in general terms, not even necessarily attacking the Highways Agency too vociferously for the supposed 'errors' that have produced the delays (although it now seems open season following their withdrawal). 

It's possible to speculate about the reasons why Watson has not come in for criticism. It may because he's seen as impartial. But as far as we're concerned, his handling of this Inquiry has been entirely partial from the start. We've written at length about this, but what concerns us lately is how Watson has essentially pulled up the drawbridge and silenced dissent of his running of the Inquiry, or at least prevented the outside world from seeing that dissent exists. 

John Watson made moves to essentially hide dissenting correspondence from public view. Late last year, a series of conditions were added to the website clarifying what kind of correspondence would be uploaded to it, and we quote:

The scope of the website is as follows:

1 Evidence submitted to the Inquiry that is relevant to the proposals and Orders that are before the Inquiry;
2 Transcripts;
3 Questions of clarification of evidence that are put in writing;
4 Legal submissions that are put to the Inquiry;
5 Documents issued by the Inspector;
6 Inquiry news and programme, and links to related websites; and,
7 It is also useful, so as to keep parties informed during the current adjournment, for the website to carry information from the Promoters regarding their current reviews of their cases (if such information is presented by them in the form of an Inquiry document). 

We can therefore see that, short of a legal challenge to the legitimacy of the Inquiry (which was beyond the means of most Objectors, and seemingly beyond the will if not the means of the larger statutory objectors), dissent as to the process itself was not be allowed to be displayed to the public. Watson created a fortress to buttress the complete sham that is his Public Inquiry. The walls are still standing, and he's still behind them.

The sham will seemingly continue until the Highways Agency decides it has had enough. Did anyone really expect anything else?

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Longdendale Siege are back on the march...
Monday, March 30, 2009

With immaculate timing, and at long last, the Longdendale Siege Committee have updated their website. It seems that nothing spurs them into action like the threat of the collapse of their beloved road.

Linked to from numerous points on the homepage is a three page newsletter, which can be viewed here (opens PDF), which Mike Flynn was seen distributing at weekend. Now we could spend all day taking this document apart, not least because of it's shocking grammar, but we'd rather highlight one or two issues that crop up in it that have been covered here on the blog in the past.

Firstly, you have the reference to the fact that the Smithy Surgery at Hollingworth wrote in to the Public Inquiry to support the bypass. We covered this in August 2007, and pointed out that the Highways Agency's own evidence shows that pollution levels will increase, and that far being from a detailed and reasoned analysis, the GPs preferred to merely state opinions (that they 'were told') rather than facts on an A5-sized compliment slip.

Secondly, the document regurgitates unreferenced & unsourced pollution statistics. We covered this in depth as well back in March 2008, by again outlining in detail how pollution would worsen with the bypass. We also noted that Longdendale Siege were not willing to present this data to the Public Inquiry so it could be subject to scrutiny.

The most laughable part of this document is the threat that direct action will be taken to obtain the road! How we'd love to see that - surely nothing would endear Siege less to their only constituency, the inpatient motorist.

But the most interesting part of the PDF is who's written it. If you go the file properties, it tells you the author is a David Moore. Remember him? Yes, we wrote a long article about this character back in February 2008. Moore is well known to anti-bypass objectors, at one time he frequently wrote in to local papers in support of the road, but what was less well known was that he was project manager for the Tameside MBC sponsored North European Trade Axis (NETA). This was a project to promote a 'trans-European transport network', linking the Humber ports with the Irish Sea ports, bringing HGV traffic from Europe, via Longdendale (& the bypass) to Ireland and back again. The website has since been taken down (how mysterious!), but the links to the pages we provided still work in the Internet Archive - you can view here David's lovely face and his contact details for the NETA project.

Siege are threatening to lobby 4NW - so that tells you who still holds the purse strings in this whole affair. But in the meantime, why not welcome them back by dropping them a line at their new email address - bypassnow09@googlemail.com - or give them a call on 07913 034896. Tell them we sent you and blow them a kiss...

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It ain't over...

Rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated! Yes, we spoke far too soon. But even we were taken aback by the news today that the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) have decided to intervene in the Bypass funding problems by coming up with a scheme of their own, no doubt with Roy Oldham throwing his weight around, using all the various kinds of 'influence' he commands. The news was published today in the Manchester Evening News, and the story can be read here.

What's new is that there would seem to be a suggestion that there are advanced plans for what's described as an 'alternative alignment' - i.e. a different route that would be ready for submission 'within a few months'. Could it be the case that the Highways Agency have been helping to model this route for months, whilst telling everyone else they were working on the current plans before the Public Inquiry? 

You may remember that at the Hoongate meeting last November, Hoon himself had suggested detrunking the A628, and also finding a new alignment. According to the minutes, James Purnell was wary since an alternative route would "hug the conurbations" - code for bringing it very close to a lot of people's houses.

Under such a plan, it's possible that even pro-bypass folk would have far more cause for concern than at present. We're busily trying to locate details of the alternative routes put before the public way back in time, but this website has details of a possible extension of the M67 mooted a long time ago, and on another page a possible route that Purnell may have been alluding to that saw the road slice through Hadfield. 

'Detrunking' means the Highways Agency would no longer be responsible for the road, and therefore their costing models for construction won't apply in the drawing up of plans for a newer bypass. It seems clear that the pro-bypass local authorities are using this as a possible method for a bypass on the cheap.

But what puzzles us is the nature of this plan. The MEN story tells us that Sir Howard Bernstein announced it at the AGMA Executive meeting last Friday - but there are no details on the agenda, nor in the supporting documents for said meeting. Is it pie in the sky? Only time will tell, but it seems for now that the fight against the road is still on, the fat lady has not yet sung...

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