Letters of Objection

July 17th 2002.

Dear Secretary of State,

Proposed second Tyne road tunnel - Objection on behalf of the Tyne Crossings Alliance

Reference TWA/02/APP/03

I enclose four Memoranda, being the objections of the Tyne Crossings Alliance to the proposed second Tyne road tunnel. The Tyne Crossings Alliance consists of the following organisations: Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), Friends of the Earth (FOE), Living Streets, Railway Development Society, Roadpeace, The Green Party, Transport 2000, Tynebikes, and Tyneside Action for People and Planet (TAPP).

Some of our member organisations will make their own separate representations and some individual members may do this too. These representations will reflect the special perspectives of each party. In this document I have attempted to draft the Alliance's objections, to reflect so for as I can the common view we have developed over the last year-and-a-bit of the Alliance's life. These views are reflected on our Website: www.tyne-crossing.org.

I have passed this document around all Alliance member representatives for comment, and comments received in the time available have been incorporated into the text. I would draw your attention to the limited time available for such a major consultation exercise however, and if this document conflicts with representations you receive from member organisations direct, please bear in mind that consultation in these circumstances is never perfect. What matters is that all Alliance members object to the proposed tunnel.

Some copies of their own submissions to you on this matter have just been received from several member bodies. All of these separate submissions appear to us to make compatible points and in many cases additional points made by member organisations helpfully complement our remarks here. For instance Friends of the Earth (FOE) highlights problems in North Tyneside; Tynebikes raises issues in South Tyneside also raised in our Memoranda; Tynebikes focuses on cyclists' concerns and Living Streets concentrates on pedestrians. I hope that between us - like Mr. and Mrs. Sprat who between them "lick the platter clean" - we cover a broad range of objections to what we all feel is a very badly thought-through and damaging proposal.

We note that FOE suggests that a Public Inquiry is premature in that the requisite studies on which consideration of the project should be based at an Inquiry are insufficiently advanced. We agree with FOE that a case for the project has not been made and the evidence adduced in favour of the project is out of touch with current Government policy and is inconsistent. On this basis perhaps the project should be rejected out-of-hand. We would not demur from this view. We write however in the expectation that realistically your options may be to either approve the Application as it stands or to call for a Public Inquiry. Of those two options we urge you as strongly as we can to call for an Inquiry where objectors to the proposal may state their case.

We will highlight one specific objection only in this covering letter: it is that the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) has for many years been disseminating extensive and expensive propaganda (which we can't hope to match) all written in terms of "when the new tunnel is built". This has confirmed a general belief on the part of the local people - even well-educated and concerned local residents - that the project will come to fulfillment whatever they do, and that the consultation process is a sham. In no small measure this view is at the root of the current indifference to the political process generally and to "consultation" in particular. The view is widely held that there is no intention on behalf of local government to use the consultation process to inform decision making; rather it is used to put a gloss upon decisions already made. The second Tyne road tunnel proposal by the PTA (an agency of local government) is a clear example of this process.

Another problem with this project is that it was inaugurated in an era when the supremacy of the car was unchallenged. Local councillors' and some business people's inertia being what it is, changed thinking nationally has not permeated locally.

A confirmation of this view is the dearth of members of the public attending the recent PTA exhibitions. We counted, in addition to ourselves, between nil and ten people visiting these events. Our conversations with local people have indicated a great deal of fatalism but little support for the project, at least when some of the objections we raise (and which the PTA hasn't included in its extensive media coverage) are explained.

As mentioned above we request that you either reject this Application or call for a Public Inquiry into the project.

Yours faithfully, on behalf of the Tyne Crossings Alliance,

Paul Winch (Co-ordinator).