Stop the Birmingham Northern Relief Road

John Prescott has broken Labour's promise not to build the Birmingham Northern Relief Road (BNRR) - a 6 lane, 27 mile toll motorway through the West Midlands Green Belt.

Construction could start at the earliest in January 1999. Midland Expressway Ltd have now to convince the banks to lend them the money to build the BNRR. Midland Expressway Ltd is a company jointly owned by Kvaerner and Autostrada.

If built the BNRR would:

• Cut through Chasewater Heath, a nationally important wildlife site
• Increase traffic on the M6 north and south of the West Midlands adding to pressure to widen this motorway
• Increase pressure to build on the West Midlands Green Belt
• Generate extra traffic, causing more pollution and congestion on already crowded roads
• Undermine Labour's planned integrated traffic policy

7 Things they don't really want you to know about the Birmingham Northern Relief Road:

• Despite Labour's claims that the BNRR is needed as a means of alleviating traffic, the Department of Transport's owm figures predict that this motorway would generate a 40% traffic increase on the M6 Northwards.
• The Highways Agency are already planning to spend £415 million of public money on widening the M6 to cope with the extra traffic.
• No Cost Benefit Analysis (COBA) of the BNRR has ever been carried out although this would be the method normally used to quantify the economic benefit of a new road. Work by expert consultants suggests that such an exercise would prove the road to be not in the public interest.
• The BNRR would not generate new business regionally or nationally but would lead to the relocation of business away from the inner city and into the Green Belt.
• Frank Dobson, Shadow Secretary of State for Transport at the time, said "The Labour Party is opposed to the building of the BNRR".
• The toll booths will be specially sealed to protect employees from the dangerous chemicals pumped out by cars using the BNRR. Nine schools will be severely affected by the motorway, three backing directly onto the route - the children will have no protection from the toxic fumes.
• Construction is due to start in January 1999 and involves the destruction of miles of Green Belt, 2 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), archeological sites, Sites of Ecological Interest, homes and farmland.

We can still stop this

There is a direct action camp which has been set up to oppose the building of the BNRR with treehouses, tunnels and towers, and cottages which have been squatted. But with 27 miles of route there's plenty of room for your ideas and energy. A possession order for eviction was granted and issued to the Under Sherrif of Staffordshire on the 11th of September - this means eviction could come at any time.

You can visit the camp along the A38 between Bassett's Pole and Weeford. Catch 105 bus from Bull Street or Corporation Street to Roughley. Get out at the last stop, walk up slip road and approximately 1 mile up A38 by ARC quarry.

The majority of local people oppose the BNRR, and local support groups are being set up. Construction is not expected to start until next year, giving us the rest of the year to BUILD - build defences, build support, build an unstoppble movement to defeat the transeuropean consortium responsible for more destruction, more pollution and more profit at our expense.

What else can you do?

Make your views heard

• Write to your local MP at The House of Commons, London SW1 1AA
• Write to John Prescott: The Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU
• Inundate Midland Expressway's office - don't let them think about anything else: Midland Expressway Ltd, 20 Eastbourne Terrace, London, W2 6LE - 0171 262 8080
• Buy shares in the companies responsible and lobby them at AGMs
• Find out if your bank supports the BNRR and is going to risk your money on this project

For more info on the B.N.R.R. phone 0797 0301978, or write to Midlands Against Super Highway (M*A*S*H), c/o Friends of the Earth, 54-57 Allison Street, Birmingham B5 5TH.

"If no-one does anything, nothing gets done"

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