Legal Bid Launched To Stop U.K. Government’s £29 Billion Road Building Plans

By Paul Homewood

Well, I did warn you!!!

From Forbes:

The U.K. government’s £28.8 billion plan to expand Britain’s road network is set to be challenged by the same legal team which, in February, halted the Department for Transport’s plan to expand Heathrow.

The Court of Appeal ruled Heathrow expansion plans were illegal because the Department for Transport had ignored the Paris climate agreement.

Lawyers acting for Transport Action Network (TAN) have asked the Department for Transport (DfT) and Highways England to scrap their five-year road building plan.

At its launch alongside the budget in March, the Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2) was described by Chancellor Rishi Sunak as England’s “largest ever” roads program.

A commitment to ramp up spending on mainly strategic roads was a key manifesto pledge in the Conservative party’s general election campaign last year. RIS2 revealed that £25.3 billion would be spent on freeways and A-roads, and £3.5 billion was pledged for major local routes.

TAN, a new campaign group, claims the plan breaches climate and air quality laws, and they have charged solicitors Leigh Day to act on their behalf. The firm, in turn, has retained the services of David Wolfe QC of Matrix chambers and Pete Lockley of 11 KBW, the same legal team that was victorious in the Heathrow case.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/04/21/legal-bid-launched-to-stop-uk-governments-27-billion-road-building-plans/

It remains to be seen what the courts make of this, but the Heathrow judgement has clearly opened up a whole new can of worms.