Challenging the Fixed Bus Way through Coton Orchard
Coton Orchard
Friends of the Cam have submitted an objection to the plan to build a fixed dedicated bus route from Cambridge (Grange Road) to Cambourne, via Coton, destroying a traditional orchard of national importance in the process. The County Council have applied for a Transport and Works Act Order; the next likely step is for the Department of Transport to set up a Public Inquiry, although it is within its power to disallow the project. The reasons for our objection are set out below.
Our main objection to the busway proposal is that this new fixed route will be used to justify opening up land for further development. Given that the proposal has absolutely no environmental, social or economic justification, there can be no other explanation for pursuing such a wasteful, destructive and ineffective project. It will destroy cherished and much valued habitats and landscapes, as well as contribute to the ongoing climate and biodiversity emergencies.
The city and its surroundings cannot support this projected growth: the water resources do not exist for even currently approved development, nor will they in the near to medium term future (see Environment Agency objections); the waste-water treatment is woefully inadequate and this looks set to continue (see Cam Valley Forum); the county is already the most nature-depleted in the country and it is the region with greatest water scarcity and most prone to heat waves. This, and inundation from rising sea levels in this lowest lying area of the country, will only get worse, threatening inflexible infrastructure.
A fixed route is likely to generate more car-driving to reach the small number of station-stops, which in any case is not planned to extend into the centre of Cambridge, nor its most popular destinations (eg hospital/bio-medical campus, schools and colleges, business parks), necessitating transport changes. Building a fixed-route roadway which only serves its own limited bus service is wasteful and will use a huge amount of carbon emitting cement which will push the county's carbon emissions even further beyond its already exceeded limits (see the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission on Climate, and Allwood et al).
We are concerned about the climate and biodiversity damage that the C2C scheme will create, and we do not accept the environmental impact statement which claims that the - as yet unspecified - mitigation measures will compensate for the loss of trees, wildlife and habitat, nor for the substantial carbon emissions created by the building of a fixed single use carriageway. We are surrounded by evidence of the failure of so-called 'biodiversity net gain', not least the death of 75% of trees planted as mitigation along the widened A14 in Cambridgeshire (Forestry Journal).
We fully agree with the need for the provision of an accessible, flexible, affordable public transport network so that people may move between the various villages and towns in Cambridgeshire. We support CPPF's alternative proposal to use the existing road network to facilitate a better and more flexible public transport system. This has a better chance of reducing car use as the routes will serve more villages, and can be available much more quickly. This is also likely to be cost-effective, something the fixed bus-way most certainly is not (the Benefit Cost Ratio for the GCP scheme being less than 0.5 which indicates extremely poor value for money).
We hope that this scheme will be abandoned for all these reasons, and more, without the need for a Public Inquiry.