All  about  WC's  would-be  A350  Westbury  Wilts  Bypass    
  ...  with  a  route  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  town,  in  the  wrong  area  

... Wiltshire Council's persistence with a confrontational counter-productive rural bypass lost any hope of funding for Westbury ...

Front Page
BS Floats in WC
Big Society: BS
Rotten to Core
Green Valley
Wrong Way
Spiralling Cost
Business Case
Barmy Bypass Bad for BA13
Pollution Risk
Threat to Best of Countryside
Walk the Route
Land Owners
Dim on Wildlife
Cement Works
Why East...?
Choked Town
Ignored Report
West Solutions for Westbury
Our Railway
Freightway
Forty Acres
Flop at Inquiry
Further Links
Web-site...?

 An independent planning inspector turned down the eastern bypass project.  And, contrary to Wiltshire Council spin, it never had any promise of funding.

The South West Regional Assembly published its Table 1 of priority schemes, which were recommended for funding, that did not include Westbury Bypass.

Table 2, within which WC’s Westbury Bypass was placed, was for low scoring schemes which required work on their environmental impact and affordability before they could potentially be recommended for regional allocation funding.

  A political ploy to get around this, at the SWRA Executive Committee Meeting on 18 Jan '06, by a manoeuvre to merge Tables 1 and 2, was heavily defeated.

A further attempt to push low scoring road schemes failed on 27 January 2006. Nobody spoke in support of a Westbury bypass.    Transport funding allocation amendments approved were for the prioritisation of other highway schemes.

The 27 January '06 full South West Regional Assembly endorsed the decision of its executive committee to keep W(C)C's Westbury Bypass scheme in Table 2.

Despite this observed and recorded vote of the South West Regional Assembly, unapproved second-rate schemes were later merged with prospective schemes through a subtle process of discreet changes re-presented over several stages.

However, before any approval, environment and cost criteria must be satisfied.

Particular requirements had been confirmed by the Department for Transport.

 W(C)C's eastern bypass would have had bad environmental impacts.     Costs for mitigation in the design were making it unaffordable, by normal standards.

By contrast, some of the longer-term ideas in SWRA Table 3 were wholly viable. The Waterloo to Exeter railway improvement concept merely involved a couple of passing loops in the section that was previously dual tracked.   All conditions were easily satisfied.     This highly affordable and speedily achievable proposal is environmentally positive and will benefit the whole South West region - now.

In the 6 July '06 listings from the Department for Transport, W(C)C's would-be Westbury Bypass was under a title of  'Schemes which do not yet have approval (ie: not accepted into the Programme)'.     This should have been clear enough.

The Transport Minister's 6 July 2006 letter also confirmed schemes which were expected to be funded over the next three years.    These 'include schemes under construction and those expected to start construction (ie: approved schemes not yet underway)'.     'Westbury Bypass' was in neither category.

The eastern Westbury bypass development was really badly placed, as it was inherently unsatisfactory in environmental impact, affordability and the other criteria which it had to comply with to be considered for funding allocation.

With all procedures followed, the eastern bypass scheme could not progress.

Wiltshire (County) Council had been putting about misleading spin otherwise.

A Wiltshire County Council presentation, given to the town council etc, included saying that a December 2006 DfT letter said anticipate funding in three years.

But..., W(C)C's 'December 2006 DfT anticipate funding letter' was fictional.

The DfT 6 July 2006 letter is well identified.   It was on the internet in July '06.  No Department for Transport letter of December 2006 exists anywhere.   The December '06 Government Office for the South West letter to Wiltshire Council refers to the DfT letter of July 2006  (NB: not to a December 2006 DfT letter).   There was no piece that funding for a Westbury Bypass was to be anticipated.

There is one specific source for the funding fallacy:  Wiltshire (County) Council.

Wiltshire (County) Council had been hoping to snatch funds intended for better transport schemes, on a basis that its Westbury Bypass was 'oven-ready'.

Wiltshire Council has wasted around £5M on a past its time turkey.

Without planning permission, there cannot be any DfT funding.

All along, 'government funding' was Wiltshire Council fiction.


A road in the wrong area and on the wrong side of the town ...    next page >>