20.07.1995

Hertfordshire road hell

LOCAL GROUPS including Communist Party supporters have set up an umbrella group to oppose the proposed widening of the A1 motorway and other related road ‘improvement’ schemes in North Hertfordshire. The Department of Transport proposals will massively increase the traffic volume through North Herts and along the A1(M) corridor.

The social and environmental consequences will be catastrophic with inevitable increases in pollution, noise and the carving-up of countryside.

Asthma rates nationally have shown a relentless rise, especially in children, corresponding to the rise in traffic volume. In fact respiratory illnesses of all kinds are increasing in line with traffic volumes.

More roads equals more vehicles equals more noise and more pollution. These facts are overwhelming. Although the state pays lip service to this, its overriding concern is definitely not for our health and well-being. Rather, the state’s priority is to satisfy the interests of the hugely influential roads and transport ‘lobbies’ - those capitalist transnational corporations that have dictated government policy - Tory and Labour.

Since Beeching in 1963 both rail and road public networks have been crippled. De-regulation and privatisation pushed the process further. Public services are totally at the mercy of the boom-bust cycle inherent under capitalism.

The only real sustainable transport policy is one in which the working class - locally and nationally - has total power in decision making. This means that the powerful roads lobby will have to be confronted, literally if necessary, head on.

For a fully safe, integrated public rail and road network system which really serves the need of the working class!

CPGB supporters, North Herts