Date published: 2005/08/22
The Cambridge Evening News says:
A group of residents who have vowed to fight plans which would see the A14 pass less than a mile from their homes could delay vital upgrading of the much maligned road.
Proposals for the new route, which would pass close to the edge of Offord Cluny, near St Neots, have received a hostile reaction from residents.
They are concerned the relief road - the A14 Ellington to Fen Ditton Road Scheme - would cause noise and pollution for people living nearby.
Residents are also worried about the effect on Buckden Gravel Pit, which has won environmental awards, and Buckden Marina, where there are holiday cottages and boats moored.
And they are angry because they say they were not consulted over plans for the new route, which was unveiled in April. In response, they formed the Offords A14 Action Group.
Now resident Nita Tinn, from Offord Cluny, has applied for a judicial review of the plans, on behalf of the action group. The reason behind her application is that the Highways Agency failed to consult on the route of the A14 relief road.
She said: "At the beginning of April 2005, the Highways Agency started a three-month consultation process, about whether the proposed route between Ellington and Fen Drayton should have four lanes or six.
"But we were not consulted on the exact route of the new road, which was fundamentally different from the preferred route proposed as a result of the Cambridge to Huntingdon Multi-Modal Study (CHUMMS) in 2001.
"The new route has moved 1km closer to the village."
She said the previous route had taken the A14 over a landfill site and further away from Buckden and the Offords.
"The Highways Agency told us they have decided against that option because of the extra cost and possibility of pollution," she said.
More NIMBYs in action. The new section of A14 will lie between Godmanchester (to the north) and the Offords (to the south). Almost exactly in between lies a hill (Offord Hill). If you put the road to the north of the hill (the original proposed route) then Godmanchester suffers more. If you put the road to the south of the hill (the new proposed route) then the Offords suffer more. (There is also a beautiful house on top of the hill which will suffer no matter what.) So the kind citizens of the Offords are basically saying (not surprisingly) that they are happy for Godmanchester to have the extra noise and pollution but not themselves. And the new route is not that close to the Offords (it's around a km). Large numbers of Cambridge citizens live within a mile of the A14 and the world has not ended for them. (On the other hand, the soon-to-be-built Arbury Camp is literally on top of the A14, which is a stupidly close distance to place new housing, but at least there are supposed to be offices buffering the housing from some of the noise.) More serious for the Offords is that they will get the road but presumably not an exit and entrance (the nearest likely exits and entrances will be on the A1 and A1198).
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