Manchester Airport Relief Road (SEMMMS) Email Action

[This email action is no longer live, it was archived when the consultation ended].

The A6 to Manchester Airport Relief Road is a proposed new road, connecting the A6 at Hazel Grove to Manchester Airport.  It consists of the northern part of what was originally called the Poynton Bypass and the A555 Manchester Airport Eastern and Western Link Roads and it ties in with a section of the A555 that was built some years ago. This six mile road, which is one of the SEMMMS (South East Manchester Multi-Modal Study) network of roads, has an estimated cost of £300 million (likely to increase) and will – according to the promoting Councils’ own reports – see a likely 21% increase in traffic at certain areas.

Roads to Nowhere. We know that building new roads does not solve people’s transport problems. Instead, road-building generates new traffic movements that did not previously exist, damages the countryside, adds to climate change and makes cities, towns and villages less pleasant places to live for everyone. That is why Manchester Friends of the Earth is working with Campaign for Better Transport on their Roads to Nowhere campaign.

Why we are opposing this proposal. The Campaign for Better Transport (CfBT) and North West Transport Roundtable (NW TAR) commissioned transport experts to examine the business case, and traffic models for the proposed road and other professionals to critique the environmental scoping study and the approach to air quality and climate change.  This report highlighted how the proposed road scheme will have a wide range of detrimental environmental, economic and social impacts effects. See the  ‘A folly in the making – SEMMMS A6-Manchester Airport Relief Road‘ report.

We’re calling for greener, cheaper alternatives to road-building…

Manchester Friends of the Earth does not support the proposed A6-MARR and we believe that the scheme will not achieve the economic and transport benefits claimed for the scheme. We submitted a detailed response to the first consultation phase, which closed on 25th January 2013.  We will be responding to the second Consultation (deadline 19^th July 2013) and will be objecting to the planning application (likely to be in the Autumn 2013).

The evidence from the UK and other countries clearly demonstrates that investing the £300 million in public transport and active travel schemes would deliver far greater benefits for the local economy, achieve healthier communities and help reach our legally required air quality and climate change targets

Please scroll down if you need more information before completing the email action.

Traffic modelling

The original SEMMMS final report was published in 2001 and traffic modelling that fed into it was undertaken in the late 1990s.

• No reliable picture is presented by the modelling of current or future travel conditions. However, it does predict additional congestion and increased carbon emissions. In other words, building the new road would not solve anything and would make the situation worse.
• The predicted traffic increases are unrealistic. The current SEMMMS business case assumes a 10% increase in traffic between 2009 and 2017. Looking at the traffic data for the decade after the original SEMMMS report (2001), there is no evidence that a baseline forecast should include any traffic growth.
• The majority of “benefits” identified will be gained by longer distance traffic, not for local traffic as the scheme claims.

Environmental Scoping Report

This was shown to be deficient on a number of key (and legally required) issues.

• The approach is not one that is likely to tackle all likely effects on the environment or the Green Belt as required by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
• It has not drawn on the River Basin Management Plan as required by the NPPF.
• It has not called for the Sustainability Appraisal to follow DEFRA’s Specific Impact Test.
• It lacks the detail required by the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB).
• It makes no reference to the Department for Transport’s transport appraisal system, WebTAG.

Major Scheme Business Case

This has serious weaknesses including:

• The strategic approach is based upon developed peripheral greenfield areas. This is an unsustainable growth strategy and will have serious impacts on surrounding economic centres. SEMMMS itself is not a valid transport (planning) strategy and there is no spatial strategy which calls for the type of peripheral development now being proposed.The £800+ million of economic benefits attributed to the A6-MARR is not well-founded.   Time savings account for 90% of economic benefits but their value is highly questionable. The actual value of time savings could be as little as 20% of that claimed.
• 70% of the scheme benefits accrue after 2032 which does not inspire confidence in the business case.
• The “Earn Back model” for financing the road construction means that there will be an in-built delay between the call for the money (construction) and increased business rates  (following occupation of developments). The anticipated timescale between the two is 10 years, which is optimistic.  Particularly as there is likely to be a reduction on the existing baseline yield from business rates as a result of businesses relocating from existing Greater Manchester locations to the Manchester Airport City/Economic Zone (EZ).

Climate Change and Air Quality Impacts

• The cumulative climate change and air quality impacts have not been assessed.
• There is a lack of up-to-date traffic generation forecast for the Manchester Airport City/ EZ.
• There are clear instances in Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) in the south of Greater Manchester and Disley where the proposed road would worsen air quality levels that are already in breach of European Union legal limits.
• The financial risk of the Local Authorities being fined for exceeding EU legal limits relating to air quality have not been taken into account in the business case.
• The business case admits that the scheme would lead to an increase in carbon emissions. Greater Manchester has committed to reducing emissions by 48% by 2020.