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Zombie Roads congregate outside MP Amber Rudd's office in Robertson Street. Credit: Milan Rai

Zombie Roads congregate outside MP Amber Rudd's office. Credit: Milan Rai

Zombie Roads are back from the dead!

It’s been a week for zombies, and it isn’t even Hallowe’en yet! Now they aren’t just passively wandering along the seafront waiting to be snapped by the HOT Style reporter – they are getting political and congregating outside MP Amber Rudd’s office in Robertson Street! HOT’s Erica Smith tooled up and set out to find out more…

On Tuesday 30 October, campaigners against the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) staged a battle between “road busters” and the “zombie roads” outside Amber Rudds’ office, to highlight her role – and that of the chancellor, George Osborne, to whom she is Parliamentary Private Secretary – in promoting what the protestors describe as “unsustainable and environmentally-damaging roads in Hastings and beyond”.

The campaigners argue that the £100m BHLR is one of over forty “zombie roads” that were declared dead years ago, yet have now been resuscitated as part of Britain’s largest road-building programme in 25 years.

Road busters battle the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road outside MP Amber Rudd's office in Robertston Street. Credit: Milan Rai

Road busters battle the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road outside MP Amber Rudd's office in Robertston Street. Credit: Milan Rai

Last week, a major report by the Campaign for Better Transport provided details of 191 road projects – conservatively costed at £30bn – that are currently in the pipeline across England and Wales. Over forty of these projects are direct revivals from the Tories’ 1990s ‘Roads for Prosperity’ programme.

In the report’s foreword, Steven Norris – who was the Tories’ Minister for Transport in London in 1992 – writes that “Experience tells us clearly that a massive programme of road building won’t solve [the problems of economic inertia, congested roads and housing shortages]… Investing in effective, affordable and easy to use public transport is part of the solution. So is planning new developments so that they do not rely on cars. Most of all, now is the time for brave and creative decision-making, not a return to the past.”

Krysia Mansfield, a spokesperson for the Combe Haven Defenders said: “Amber Rudd’s support for the Link Road – an environmentally disastrous white-elephant project that will increase overall traffic levels while derailing sustainable transport alternatives – means that she is currently part of the problem. We urge her to take note of former Tory Transport Minister Steven Norris’ wise words and withdraw her support for the Link Road.”

The campaign against the Link Road was featured in last weekend’s Sunday Times – you can read the article here.

The Combe Haven Defenders (CHD), are calling on 1,066 people from across the country to “pledge to take part in peaceful resistance to the construction of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road”. For more information, visit the CHD website, or contact 07926 423033.

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Posted 16:39 Tuesday, Oct 30, 2012 In: Campaigns

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