Westbury Eastern Bypass: A Brief Timeline
1997 - public opinion against Eastern bypass for Westbury. 10,000 questionnaires were sent out by Wiltshire County Council(WCC) asking for views regarding a Westbury bypass. Less than 13% were returned with a “YES Westbury needs a bypass”. Of the 594 returns, 463 did not believe than an Eastern bypass offered a satisfactory solution.
1998 - public opinion shows 3/4 want route to West instead. Wiltshire County Council consultants put forward a number of routes for a bypass around the small town of Westbury, to the west of town. A single alternative to the East was also included, but this is unpopular and only attracts a quarter of the votes. Local politics and the search for the cheapest route around the town regardless of environmental or landscape constraints win the day: an Eastern route is chosen even though nearly all Parish Councils and the Wessex Chambers of Commerce favour a Western one.
May 1999- public opinion shows unpopularity of Eastern bypass. Westbury Parish Poll showed the unpopularity of an Eastern bypass again. The question Do you want an Eastern Bypass? Produced the results: Yes:271 votes; No: 1,357 votes. To the question Do you want a Western Bypass? the results were Yes 1,409; No: 223.
Parkmans consultants, advising the County, and TRL consultants advising the District, both agreed that there was not sufficient traffic in Westbury to justify a bypass of the town. Both identified Yarnbrook as having a higher priority. Parkmans recommended further investigation of a bypass to the west.
2001 - public opinion once again shows unpopularity of Eastern Bypass. A poll of Westbury and surrounding villages asked the question: "Should the County Council put in a bid for government funding for the Eastern Westbury Bypass?" 535 said "no" and only 164 said "yes". The County ignored the results and put in a bid anyway. The results of the questionnaire are left out of the documentation submitted to GOSW, since these would have had a negative effect.
Embarassment of road going near White Horse. The Bristol Bath to South Coast Study takes place. This study is of long distance traffic goinsg to the South Coast Ports. The minutes of the meeting on 22/01/02 WCC requested that Item 5 of the minutes be altered to indicate that the preferred route for the A350 was a Westbury By-pass to the eastern side, and not to make reference to the White Horse.
Jan 2003 - 700 people demonstrate against Eastern Westbury bypass. Nearly 700 local people marched against the Eastern Bypass. Both local TV channels covered the event. Wiltshire County Council ignored the demonstration completely.
June 2003 - West Wilts Local Plan Inspector recommends against Eastern Bypass. This is on the bais of landscape considerations, water, lack of proper assessment fo Western alternatives, unpopularity and incomplete Bristol Bath to South Coast Study.
July 2003 - Wiltshire County Councill ignore Local Plan Inspector. The County ignore the Inspector's recommendation recommendation and put in a bid for money to finance the scheme only a couple of weeks after the Inspector had recommended against it.
September 2003 - County pressure District to disregard Local Plan inspector's recommendation. The county exerted pressure on West Wilts District to put the Eastern Westbury Bypass in the Local Plan against his recommendation, on the basis that a bid for cash was now in so they cannot exclude the road from a policy document.
The District grudgingly put the road in the plan, but fortunately with the caveat that if the bid for funding failed, then the bypass was out of the plan.
July 2004- Bristol, Bath to South Coast Study reports The Study puts forward that long distance HGVs should not go along the A350 but use the existing trunk road and motorway system, in conjunction with new signs on the motorways and at the ports and road charging. The study does say that a bypass for Westbury would benefit the town centre, but notes that public opinion is for a western bypass that links in with industry and the proposed freight terminal. It is noted that the study was not looking a route for the bypass, not examining closely environmental or other local considerations.
December 2004 - Westbury Eastern Bypass out of Local PlanThe Government refused to fund the Westbury Bypass but deferred the road to the region. The road was taken out of the West Wilts Local Plan, as the caveat was now triggered.
January 2005- opposition from town council removed. Westbury Town Council has always favoured a western route to the bypass. This is inconvenient for those pushing for the road. So, Westbury Town Councillors who live in the East or South of town are informed that they no longer discuss the Westbury Bypass, let alone vote on the subject. Councillors who live in west or north however, are allowed to freely discuss and vote on the issue. The result is that for the first time, the town council decides that an Eastern bypass is desirable.
May 2005 - planning application put-in by County Council just before general election.Three weeks before the general election Wiltshire County Council put in a planning application for the bypass giving the legal minimum of 21 days consultation, despite the very large and complex Environmental Statement. The county hoped that just before an election, that councillors will be busy with other things little attention to the planning application. The county failed to alert the Wildlife Trust of the application but luckily Wiltshire Wildlife Trust were alerted to the planning documents by one of their members.
November 2005 - Westbury is shown to be a low regional priority and does not initially get funds. The South West Regional Assembly have a stakeholder meeting regarding financing of transport infrastructure. The ensuing score sheet for schemes gives the Westbury Bypass only 4 points, meaning that it will not be funded. The list of schemes to be funded is made available on-line. GOSW (Government Officer of the South West) agree that the Environmental score for Westbury should have been "poor".
December 2005 - hijacking of the regional funding process to move money to rural bypasses including Westbury Wiltshire County Council, Dorset and Devon team up to infiltrate the process for allocating transport money to regional projects, with the aim of getting finance for three contentious bypasses: Westbury, Kingskerswell and Weymouth. Past large transport project in the South west had favoured Wiltshire in particular, with three "major scheme bids" being funded.
January 27th 2006 - advice goes from region to minister. Advice went to the minister from the region without Westbury in the primary list of schemes considered to be regional priority. It was in a Table labelled : Table 2 - Schemes which require further work and/or that require further analysis in relation to profiling of the programme and that could potentially be added to the RFA programme (subject to affordability and deliverability).
April 2006 - West Wilts asks region for as much new development as possible West Wilts District Council and Wiltshire County Council ask the South West Region for as many new houses as possible, suggesting 11,500 new jobs for the Trowbridge Travel to Work area by in the Regional Spatial Strategy, by 2025. It was noted that, whereas other local authorities had prepared public transport strategies to accompany growth, Wiltshire had neglected to do so.
July 2006 - LTP2 consultation fudge. Wiltshire finally complete their second local transport plan (LTP) for submission to the Department for Transport. Whereas the first LTP (of 2000) had to admit that road building was bottom of peoples' list of priorities, the authority made sure that would not happen again, by altering the way consutlation was done. The County wrote a piece of draft explanatory text outlining the County Council's own broad investment priorities and asked people to comment on it. WCC explains in its LTP2 that "Due to time constraints, only two of the four groups managed to complete this task, both of which raised no objections to the suggested text."Thus the local authority concluded that delivery of Westbury Bypass and the Brunel Link and Harnham Relief Road were in the top prioirty category in stakeholder consultation. In fact even in Westbury, the bypass was not high in the list of peoples' concerns.
WCC do admit that it was pointed out by consultees that LTP1 Major Schemes have no relevance in the prioritisation of Integrated Transport Block spending.
October 2006 Bath and North East Somerset vote to send their through HGV traffic on the A36-A46 through West Wiltshire on the A350. The alarm is sounded by communities on the A361 who would face even more lorries cutting East-West across the county, and by communities on the A350 including Beanacre, Melksham, Yarnbrook. WCC say "Wiltshire County Council will object to these proposals (the lorry management scheme) until traffic management and environmental improvements along the A350 route, and in particular the A350 Westbury By-pass, have been implemented in order to mitigate the diversion of lorries from the A36 through Bath". WCC neglect to make the case for bypasses at Yarnbrook, West Ashton, Beanacre of Melksham, or comment on the load of HGVs along the A361.
October 2006 - regional transport discussions go underground. The region decides to look again at schemes for regional funding, to give further advice to the Minister. To avoid unsettling anyone, the "refresh process" is done by a ‘Technical Panel’ comprising Environment Directors from Local Authorities and GOSW, RDA and Highways Agency. This all went on behind closed doors, without any stakeholder consultation because had that happened, the usefulness of Table 2 schemes to the region in promoting the RSS would have been questioned. The result is that schemes in Table 2 are fast-tracked as "priorities" with Wiltshire County Council's George Batten, unusually, taking a prime position on a small select team working direct with the Department for Transport in London.
March 2007 - second planning application submitted. The many objections to this have no affect on the County Council who are minded to give themsleves planning permission regardless. The County Council ignore even the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust who object substantially to the planning application. Natural England are pressurised by the County to such an extent, employing "gladiator tactics" that they eventually cave in, their only consolation being that the bypass will be a good "guineapig" for experimental mitigation on highly protected species. Their first letter of objection does however explain that they have do not support the scheme because it is unsustainable development.
July 2007 - the planning application is called in. This means that WCC cannot give itself planning permission and that instead there will be a full planning inquiry.
February 2008 - the White Horse Alliance persuade Government to delay the start of a planning inquiry into the controversial Westbury Eastern Bypass. Solicitors acting for the Alliance wrote to the Secretary of State for Communities complaining that the Planning Inspectorate had acted unreasonably in setting a starting date in April without consulting objectors. More details
March 2008 - the pre-inquiry meeting, held on March 3, shows the extent of opposition to the proposed bypass. The Inspector recommends an inquiry starting 17 June 2008. More details