We've been taking a look at the running totals on our 'alternative consultation' and it makes for pretty interesting reading.
To date, over 1,000 of you have taken part (Thank you!) and your selections can be summarised as follows:
A whopping 56.5% of participants believe that we need to get freight off our roads completely, with a properly funded, multi-modal solution, with improvements to public transport to address non-port traffic.
Next up, 38.5% would like to see the money found to build a tunnel.
The remaining 5% of participants went with either of the two 'options' originally presented; a road through Rimrose or redeveloping the existing route. Each to their own!
These running totals are interesting for a number of reasons.
For such a large percentage to have opted for a non-road approach, we believe this demonstrates that awareness is growing that better solutions DO exist and that we need to be doing more to solve the infrastructure and pollution challenges we are faced with today.
People are simply not buying the argument that there is no money to do this.
Rather, they know that the money exists, but it has been deemed that we aren’t worthy of it.
For the first time in our lifetime, air pollution, the environment and climate change are big news and dominate the headlines.
The recent activism on our streets and across the world, particularly amongst younger people, is seemingly waking people up to the fact that there are better ways of doing things.
We need those in power (you know, our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES!!!) to respond to this, to embrace new ways of thinking, to move away from their obsession with tarmac and to prioritise people’s interests ahead of those of huge, multi-national corporations, such as Peel Ports.
Simple, isn't it?
This figure, coupled with the 38.5% favouring a tunnel option means that an incredible 95% of the people who have taken part do not feel that either of the two, original options were acceptable.
It’s little wonder that Highways England chose not to present a tunnel option to the public.
It would have trounced the other options combined and been much harder for them to ignore, which is exactly what they did in choosing Rimrose Valley as their preferred route.
As it happened, 2,229 people responded to the 2017 consultation in one of four ways, which is the kind of thing we can expect to see next time around:
Using an online questionnaire
At public consultation events by completing a paper copy of the questionnaire
By post using the freepost address printed on a paper copy of the questionnaire
By email to a dedicated email address
We need to set ourselves the target of smashing this figure next time around and to leave Highways England in no doubt that we don’t want their road.
Whichever way you choose to do it, the instructions are simple: use any and every opportunity that exists in the questionnaire to tell them that the road they are proposing is not an acceptable solution on the grounds of public health, the environment and climate change.
In the meantime, if you haven’t done so already, please take part by clicking the link below and share this with others!
Thank you.