Clearer bypass answers needed

The ‘experts’ currently touring Sussex to promote the latest official plans for an Arundel Bypass seem curiously illprepared for basic questions. So do the protestors who are standing outside promoting an unofficial alternative route.

For example, the officials inside warm and cosy can offer only hopelessly vague costing.

After bouncing my simple ‘how much’ question around they came up with ‘between £320million and £455 million’ of taxpayers’ money, which translates to ‘blank cheque’.

The unofficials outside in the cold reckon the official route will cost nearer £500million but have no estimate whatsoever for their route. Not even a ballpark.

Why can’t the unofficials just say that their preferred new road route is around a quarter or fifth the length of the official route, and both routes will needs stilts to cross the flood plain. So the unofficial route will cost around a quarter or less of the cost of the official route.

Also, as far as I could decode from all the muddled and contradictory comments, the cut-to-chase policy difference between the two routes is this: the official plan is to use all and only dual carriage highway while the unofficial plan is to build some new single carriage road that will connect with an existing single carriage section of the existing A27 road.

So it’s a straight choice. Save pots of money and massive local destruction by making cars slow down for a few miles. How much the slowing matters will depend on how well traffic flow is controlled and smoothed and how many people are working from home rather than commuting, or driving electric vehicles which may be slower anyway.

This would all make for an interesting and useful debate. But we can’t have it until the protagonists start talking more clearly.

BARRY FOX Belsize Grove, London