AN ENVIRONMENTALIST says road building plans will increase traffic and has refused to back proposals for a bypass.

Dr Tony Whitbread, chief executive of the Sussex Wildlife Trust, said plans for a bypass around Arundel which may damage the South Downs National Park were wrongheaded.

He said: “It’s starting at the bottom, we need to start at the top.

“First, reduce the need for travel when we build new homes and developments. Second, encourage people to cycle or walk their short journeys.

“Then invest in buses and trains, and only finally, maybe, look at road building.”

He said Sussex Wildlife Trust “has problems” with all three of the proposed expansions of the A27, especially the two “off-line” routes which would skirt the town to the south and go through ancient South Downs woodland.

He said: “Let’s stop the pretence. New roads will bring more traffic and more congestion.

“We know this from pure common sense and from decades-old evidence that road-building generates more traffic.

“Professor Phil Goodwin in his 2006 report pointed out that for 80 years, empirical studies and official reports had agreed on the rather inconvenient truth that more road capacity leads to more traffic.

“Evidence from the CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) in 2017 uses 13 cases, each analysed in detail for traffic impact, and concluded that road schemes generate more traffic.

“On average, traffic grew 47 per cent with one scheme more than doubling traffic within 20 years.

“None of the four schemes assessed in the longer term showed the promised reduction in congestion. All put pressure on adjoining roads.

“A knee-jerk road building reaction only makes matters worse and a more sophisticated solution is needed.”

The three Arundel bypass options, which will cost anywhere from £135 million to £260 million, will be funded by the Department for Transport’s £15 billion roads investment strategy fund.

The first consultation into an Arundel bypass began with a scheme assessment report undertaken in 1985, with a public consultation published in 1987, so these latest proposals are 30 years in the making.

The public consultation will end on October 16.

To review the scheme, go to http://roads.highways.gov.uk/projects/a27-arundel-improvement.