Merger forms 'Road Block' anti-road protest group

An alliance of groups and individuals campaigning against the building of new roads has been set up under the name 'Road Block'.

The campaigners behind the new association say that it has been launched in response to a proposed scheme for 200 new roads throughout the UK.

Road Block has warned that its' campaigns could lead to the kind of protests that were successfully used to stop road-building in the mid-Nineties.

The group has claimed that it plans to "highlight the insanity of more road building" and support a move towards "sustainable transport practices". Road Block has also claimed that road building destroys and degrades habitats, species and heritage, as well as contributing to health problems, such as asthma. It also says that road transport is the single biggest contributor to the UK's output of greenhouse gases.

Road Block members are joining residents in Bedfordshire today to oppose clearance work, due to begin today at the site of the Stoke Hammond to Linslade Bypass.

Stephen Joseph, director of the campaign group, Transport 2000, has welcomed the formation of Road Block. He said: "The government made the right choice when it rejected plans to push a dual carriageway through the Blackdown Hills in Somerset, but the shadow of the bulldozer has been left hanging over the countryside at many other places. This is typical of the split personality of the government on road building. One minute it is saying road building is futile, the next it is resigning itself to more of it. There is no logic. We can understand why people are getting angry and we welcome the formation of Road Block to direct that anger more effectively. Unless destructive road building becomes firmly a thing of the past, we will see the re-emergence of mass protests, last seen at Newbury and Twyford Down in the mid-'90s."

(KMcA/SP)