Conservationists go to court over bypass permission in Hardy country

Environmental organisations have stepped up their campaign against a controversial new road in Dorset by mounting a legal challenge to the project, approved earlier this year by the county council.

Transport 2000 and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) have requested a judicial review of the council's decision to approve the Weymouth Relief Road.

The route of the new road, part of which will be in a cutting, traverses the Dorset Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) the landscape which was a favourite of the writer Thomas Hardy. Natural England, the Government's wildlife and landscape watchdog, objected to the bypass.

The groups fighting the new road have claimed that in approving the scheme, the planning authority failed to consider strict regional planning policies designed to prevent development in AONBs.

Stephen Joseph, Transport 2000's executive director, said: "If allowed to go ahead, this road would not solve Weymouth's traffic problems and would instead increase traffic and add thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, whilst destroying irreplaceable ancient woodland."

CPRE's chief executive Shaun Spiers said: "We would be failing in our role to protect the countryside if we did not take this important legal action. Policies to protect our most treasured landscapes are rightly very strong and must not be ignored."

The court challenge is being supported by Friends of the Earth, CPRE Dorset and the Woodland Trust.

Read Transport 2000 news release

Roger Milne

12 July 2007