Green versus Red

Whilst at the Lakeside Festival at Kirk Hallam last week I was approached by representatives of Green Squeeze and asked if I would sign a petition about the proposed access roads into the Stanton Ironworks redevelopment site.



Now whilst the developers who are proposing upwards of 5000 new houses plus some light industrial units are to be congratulated on the use of former industrial land, their proposals for access require much more consideration. Take a look at this map on the Green Squeeze website and in particular at the proposals for the red and pink routes. Both of these link into a new junction on the A52 and would be fine for traffic to and from Derby and the west. But any traffic heading towards Nottingham and the east or north and south via the M1 would, human nature being what it is, surely use the existing road network through Stanton-By-Dale, Sandiacre and Risley among others.

Furthermore the red and pink routes would forge a way through the rolling countryside such as that seen above between Dale Village and Stanton-By-Dale and have a huge negative effect on the environment. The green and blue routes provide a much more sensible approach but as we all know, common sense is often ignored when financial considerations are involved and red would probably be cheaper in the short term than green. It appears some routes have already been rejected making the cheaper options more likely so I would encourage all local people to explore the Green Squeeze website to read more about the proposals and to make their feelings known to the powers that be before our landscape is ruined forever.

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification. Publilius Syrus (1st century BC)