Hands up who believes the propaganda of Tameside MBC & Longdendale Siege Committee that the Longdendale Bypass is meant to relieve the three villages of congestion? If there are any that read this weblog, then this post may make you think again. For those who already suspect it is lies, here is the evidence that seems to have lain buried, until now.
Readers of local newspapers may be familiar with one David Moore. A person of that name used to regularly write in to advocate pro bypass views, as well as launch vitriolic attacks on anti-bypass campaigners (to be fair, we could be said to be the 'anti David Moore' in that respect, as it's our style too). Some examples are here and here (notice the classic Chronicle/Daily Mail/Fascist headline for the latter - 'Minority views are not valid'). We're not sure whether or not he had any direct affiliation with the Longdendale Siege Committee, but given his views and willingness to write to the newspapers (and regularly get published) we'd be surprised if he didn't. The fact that he lives in Hollingworth makes it seem highly unlikely that he is a stranger to them.
But what can be revealed with certainty is that someone called David Moore (with the fizzog displayed above) used to work for Tameside MBC. His contact details are on this page of this website. Go on, take some time to read what the website is about.
Yes, he was the Project Manager for the North European Trade Axis (NETA), an organisation seemingly run by TMBC from their offices. He also clearly has affiliations with the North West Regional Assembly, given the alternate email address on the contact page.
So what is NETA about? Lots of things, full of awful public language, the new bourgeois coded speech. But looking at the website and the conference reports, there talk of Transpennine Corridors, and 'management of M62 traffic flows'. But next to David Moore's face on the 'welcome' page is this more intelligible blurb:
"The NETA project seeks to develop and promote a West-East Eurocorridor extending from Northern and Southern Ireland across the Irish Sea to the Transpennine Corridor of Northern England and thence via the Humber ports and North Sea to the Netherlands, North Germany, Poland and beyond"
Given that TMBC are the facilitators of this project, we can now clearly link them with a project to develop their leg of a 'braided' (their terminology) trans-european transport network: in this context 'management of M62 traffic flows' can only mean one thing - diversion of key (trade) traffic elsewhere. Clearly, leaving the M1 to avoid the M62 and thereby accessing the M60 to head to the Western ports for Ireland and vice versa: the Longdendale Bypass.
Because the website was last updated in 2005, it looks like the project isn't exactly thriving, and we're not sure why this is. We wonder if the project is on hold, given the delays of the Public Inquiry.
We feel that this post is not the end of this issue, and we hope to return to it again in future.
In the meantime, if you really do believe the Longdendale Bypass is meant to relieve the three villages of congestion, ask Tameside and David Moore for explanations as to what NETA is all about. And come and tell us what they said. Food for throught.
NB: since we originally posted this article, the NETA website has mysteriously disappeared! We have changed the links to point to the pages captured by the internet archive.
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