The moment has finally arrived. All the consultants have been consulted; all the experts have had their say and have prepared their reports for the umpteenth time. Torbay and Devon County Councils have at last applied for planning permission to build the Kingskerswell Bypass. However this is not necessarily a cause for celebration.

The Herald Express Opinion by the editor (Saturday 20th) has given the first signs of waking up to the reality of what this road development will really mean to local council tax payers. There are many arguments both for and against the building of this road and your readers will be fully aware of them and I do not intend to go over old ground in this article. The fact is that all have heard the arguments for and against and have reached their own personal decisions as to whether they support the scheme or not. But have they really heard the whole truth?

I would like to confine myself to the single issue that applies to supporters and detractors of the scheme alike, namely who will pay for it and how? The minimum cost of the road is given as £78 million and this ignores the environmental mitigation that was recommended by DCC’s own consultants to protect the residents of Kingskerswell from the excessive road noise that would emanate from the scheme. The recommendation by Halcrow Fox is that at least 500 metres of the road through the village should be covered over which would push the cost to over £100 million. Whichever figure you believe in it is still a lot of money and none of it is going to come from central government no matter which party wins the next election. If you were the Transport Minister with a limited budget and with an eye to pleasing the maximum number of the electorate would you spend it on the motorway networks around London, Birmingham, Manchester etc which are a daily nightmare for millions of people, or would you spend it on less than 3 miles of dual carriageway because it could save you ten minutes when travelling from Newton abbot to Kerswell Gardens?

It would be difficult to believe that Mr Ed Chorlton and his supporters on both councils would have taken proceedings this far, at huge expense to local taxpayers, without having gone into the fine detail of how to pay for it. The time has now surely come for them to tell us by how much and for how long local taxes will have to rise to pay for this scheme. Constant references to “private sector cash” cut no ice with the thinking man; money borrowed has to be paid back with interest and it is local people that will pick up the bill. The information must be available in an internal business plan and the Kingskerswell Alliance challenges Torbay and Devon County Council to publish the figures. If DCC can demonstrate to us that the majority of people affected are happy find £78 million plus out of local taxes for the road then the democratic process will have been followed. Tell the public the whole truth as you know it and be judged either way. We would also encourage people to think of the next development phase if this scheme was ever implemented. How long do you think it would be before plans to run a dual carriageway through the Westerland Valley would surface again? The ambitions of the developers will not stop at Kerswell Gardens.

We are now entering a finite period, possibly only 21 days which is the official response period, when the public are able to write to the planning officer with their objections (or support) for this scheme. It is understandable that DCC are reluctant to publish the unpalatable truth of projected council tax rises that will inevitably follow, but they will be failing miserably in their duty to the public if they do not. It is bad enough that the period for objection from the public happens to coincide with that time of the year when we are all worrying more about Christmas preparations, than putting pen to paper to object to road schemes, without withholding vital information that could sway public opinion.

In the last Parish Council elections over 500 people in Kingskerswell elected two councillors standing solely on an anti- bypass ticket which represented some 30% of the turnout. The resident’s survey conducted by the Conservative Party in Teignbridge returned an even higher percentage of people opposed to the scheme. It is essential that these people and other concerned residents now make their voices heard. If you have any concerns relating to the scheme then the Kingskerswell Alliance urges you to write and express your opinions, either for or against, before 20th December. People power does make a difference, doing nothing now and complaining later does not; if it did the CLS Laundry would disappear overnight.

The address is

Mr. M Deaton,
Devon County Council,
Environment Directorate,
Lucombe House,
County Hall,
Topsham Road,
Exeter,
EX2 4QW

Signed: Richard Hamlyn

Chairman of the Kingskerswell Alliance