Leading environmental groups have joined in condemning the Government for failing to gather crucial information on the environmental impacts of road schemes.

Transport Ministers have declined to tell MPs how much climate-changing carbon dioxide gas will be produced by recently approved road schemes. [1] They also refused to answer a question about the combined impacts of those schemes on nationally designated landscapes and wildlife sites. [2]

Both questioners were refused with the excuse that the information could only be supplied at disproportionate cost.

In a joint statement, the Campaign to Protect Rural England [3], Friends of the Earth [4], Transport 2000 [5] and Road Block [6] said:

‘How can the Government be taking the environment and climate change seriously if it can’t be bothered to find out how much damage will be caused by the road schemes it has approved, and then putting the information in the public domain?

‘Ministers know that rising road traffic, and the road building which goes on in a futile attempt to accommodate it, is one of the greatest environmental threats.

‘We need to know about the overall increase in greenhouse gas emissions which follows when these road schemes are completed, and about the combined harm they are doing to National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, internationally designated nature reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.’

The groups argue that with both the Eddington and Stern [7] reports recommending that transport must pay its full environmental costs, the Government must measure and publicise the full impact of its policies on climate change, treasured landscapes and wildlife.

‘Government must think again, and give the facts,’ their statement concludes.

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