Planning borne of hybrid bill ignores all negative criteria until far too late, causing huge waste of time, effort and money before it has even started. If previous national infrastructure projects were hampered by planning issues it’s because the planning wasn’t done properly, not because the planning process is flawed. Hybrid bill simply cheats the system.
Environmental considerations have been disastrously ignored, Colne Valley for instance will have its eco-services destroyed; natural flood mitigation, water filtering for London’s drinking water, huge carbon capture and air scouring of 300 acres of woodland to go, UK/EU Biodiversity Action Planning ripped apart, tree protections dismissed, species protections dismissed (13 bat species (many tree roosting) eels, otter, watervole, 120 species of bird, many rare species of invertebrate and plants) habitat destruction, educational wealth forgotten, (all this repeated over and over again over the length of the line) and all for a very very very small minority who may or may not benefit by a supposed 20 min cut in travel time.
How about a bit of democracy? How about pulling heads out of the sand for a good look around? How about acceptance that when in a hole the best policy is to STOP digging!?
Mark Keir, Uxbridge