Campaigners against Cogges Link Road start new attack (From The Oxford Times)

Campaigners against Cogges Link Road start new attack

2:42pm Tuesday 9th December 2008 in

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Campaigners against the £15m Cogges Link Road have issued a new attack, detailing the scheme’s flooding risk and environmental impact on the River Windrush water meadows in Witney.

It comes as West Oxfordshire district councillors on Monday meet the officers highlighting concerns, but nevertheless recommending to them to support the road.

The CPRE/First Witney protest group this week released a computer-enhanced view of the road as it crosses the Windrush floodplain on a five-metre high embankment. It is a graphic used by the county council in support of the scheme, but the group has added two container lorries.

It also shows two new bridges that will have to be built to carry the road across both arms of the river. The image is contrasted with a present-day photograph from the same viewpoint.

David Condon, the group’s spokesman, said: “Putting the lorries in shows the real environmental impact of what will be on the road.People should also be aware that in July 2007, there was significant flooding in part of the area, where the road will go. We think that the risk will be even greater with run-off from a major new road.”

The county council has finished its public consultation on the Cogges Link Road scheme, and is expected to make a decision at its planning and regulation committee in February next year.

This week, county planning manager, Rob Dance, said: “Oxfordshire County Council has not formally released any figures relating to the consultation. Responses are still being collated. These will be released before consideration of the planning application.”

However, the Gazette has seen an email from a council officer to Mr Condon, stating that on November 27 (a day before the end of consultation) they had “over 1,200 objections and up to 170 in support of the planning application”. The CPRE is pressing for an alternative scheme, a four-way junction at Shores Green on the A40 Witney bypass. County planning officers, however, maintain the CLR, though 1.8 kilometres long and more expensive, will provide better relief for the town’s Bridge Street bottleneck.

On Monday, the lowlands planning sub-committee of West Oxfordshire District Council, a key consultee, will decide whether to support the CLR.

Senior officer Phil Shaw says in his report to the meeting that measures will need to be taken to reduce flood risk and protect the environment.

The measures include a storage lagoon, a series of ditches and filter drains, new culverts over Mill Stream, diversion of the west branch of the River Windrush, street lighting only at the road’s two end junctions.

Mr Shaw says: “The technical reports indicate that the CLR outperforms Shores Green in terms of traffic issues, but there is more environmental harm.

“However, that harm in terms of landscape impact and ecological damage is proposed to be mitigated, and the area of affected land is already affected to some degree by the A40 passing through it.”