Westbury Bypass Refused - looking forward

The report of The Public Enquiry into the proposed Westbury Bypass was published a couple of days ago, together with the Secretary of State's decision based on that report. As someone who attended the enquiry briefly and made a statement, I have received a copy of the various papers from the Department for Transport, and from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In summary, the enquiry recommended that the planning application by Wiltshire (County) Council be refused, and the Secretary of state agreed with that recommendation. Formally "He hereby refuses planning permission for the construction of a new single carriageway road with a climbing lane over part of the route, roundabout junctions, associated infrastructure and works in accordance with application number W.07.09002 dated 14th February 2007."

The covering letters and reports are in two sections - those relating to the Department for Transport and those relating to the Department for communities and local government. They are online:

Transport:
letter - http://www.gos.gov.uk/nestore/docs/transport/laos/westbury_ltr.pdf
report - http://www.gos.gov.uk/nestore/docs/transport/laos/westbury_report.pdf

Local Government:
letter - http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planning-callins/pdf/1271537
report - http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planning-callins/pdf/westburybypassreport.pdf

Public Enquiries such as this have tended to come down on the side of the official authorities who propose them in the past; such authorities have the full time team to present an excellent, logical case, the access to expertise, and access to taxpayer's money to fund the presentation of the case. They are the Goliaths at such enquiries. Organisations who oppose do not have access to the official funding, and are very much on their back foot through the procedure as they have to be reactive rather than pro-active, prepared for any "curved ball" which the proposing authority throws at them, and within their own funding. They are the Davids.

So the result is a bit of a surprise ... I'm not sure what proportion of such enquires recommend a rejection of major proposals into which so much time and public money has gone (millions of pounds that could have bought a train service for many years) ... but it's certainly something of a surprise. It is important to study the reasons given (summary), but it is doubly important now to look forward, and say what can and should we be doing for transport flows in this corridor, now with the changed metrics brought about by the refusal.

Local (i.e. council tax payer's) funding of the rejected bypass would have accounted for some 10% of the scheme's cost. We may now have a golden opportunity to look at how that money saved can be used, never the less, to meet the objectives of improved journey times through Wiltshire by both private and public transport, and reduced traffic levels through Westbury and elsewhere resulting in an improved environments there.

One such scheme is an appropriate passenger train service on the parallel railway - see here; that should be enhanced by better integration of different transport modes, which can be done at very little cost (and in some cases cost saving) ... encouraging people to use public transport where they can with a carrot rather than with a stick, in so doing reducing the number of vehicles using the current road network, leaving it clearer for those journeys for which there is no sensible alternative than private motor vehicles.
(written 2009-07-04) 90a1

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  [428] Swindon - Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge - Westbury train service - (2005-08-29)
  [154] Railway train service, Melksham station - (2004-12-17)

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