Joint Action against the M74 (JAM74)

NEWS RELEASE

For immediate use: Friday 17th September 2004

M74 motorway:
Campaigners call for motorway to be ditched & money diverted to contaminated land clean-up

Campaigners have today called for the Scottish Executive and Glasgow City Council to ditch the planned M74 Northern Extension and spend the money cleaning up contaminated land across Glasgow. The call follows the report in last night's BBC Newsnight Scotland programme on a new European Court of Justice ruling.

Joint Action against the M74 (JAM74) [1] believe that priority for funds should go to cleaning up already-polluted land rather than spending money on another polluting motorway.

Will Jess, Chair of JAM74, said:

"This legal judgement is just one more reason why the M74 should never be built. From day one, we've been calling for the contaminated land to be cleaned up and this latest revelation underlines the urgent need for this to happen.

"If the Scottish Executive had any interest in improving the health of Glasgow's people, it would spend the £1 billion due to be wasted on another polluting motorway on cleaning up contaminated land across the whole of Glasgow. Concreting over toxic waste under the M74 is no solution to the wider issues of improving Glasgow's polluted environment."

Earlier this week, JAM74 held a press briefing at the Scottish Parliament featuring MSPs and campaigners from Friends of the Earth Scotland and TRANSform Scotland. A copy of the media briefing produced for this is appended. [2]

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

[1] JAM74

JAM74 is a coalition of community, environmental and sustainable transport groups. Member organisations of JAM74 include Residents Against the M74, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Scottish Association for Public Transport, the Scottish Green Party, the Scottish Socialist Party & TRANSform Scotland. See http://uk.geocities.com/jam74_uk/

[2] JAM74 Background Briefing – September 2004

1. Who is JAM74?
2. What is the M74 Northern Extension?
3. What happened at the public inquiry?
4. Why we are opposed to the M74?
5. A biased and unfair planning process

1. Who is JAM74?

JAM74 (Joint Action against the M74) is a coalition of community, environmental and sustainable transport groups. Member organisations of JAM74 include Residents Against the M74, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Scottish Association for Public Transport, the Scottish Green Party, the Scottish Socialist Party & TRANSform Scotland.

2. What is the M74 Northern Extension?

The M74 is the UK’s largest road building project, due to cost between £500 million and £1 billion. It is a six-lane elevated motorway across south Glasgow. A public inquiry was held between 1st December 2003 and March 2004, the Reporters' report was delivered to the Scottish Executive in July 2004, and a decision from the Executive is expected soon.3. What happened at the Public Inquiry?

There were 379 Objections including over 40 statutory objections from people whose businesses or properties are proposed as being compulsorily purchased for the scheme. JAM74 presented evidence to the Inquiry and cross-examined the proponents of the road: the Scottish Executive, Glasgow City Council, South Lanarkshire Council, and Renfrewshire Council.
Over the course of the Inquiry the proponents had to concede some interesting facts:

3.1 M74 Steamrollered Through

The proponents conceded that the M74 has been treated very differently from other projects of this scale. The alternatives to the motorway have never been investigated while the project had never been examined under the latest strategic environmental assessments.

3.2 Fantasy Job Claims

For many years the proponents have evangelised about how the M74 could create anything up to 44,000 jobs. Yet during the Inquiry it became all too clear that these claims could not be substantiated. It turns out that what has been presented as new employment is likely to be merely a relocation of jobs, so tough on those in other Scottish communities who will be thrown on the dole as their jobs move. Most significantly, it has transpired that the majority of the jobs would have been created anyway as a result of other developments and would thus in no way be dependent on the construction of the M74.

3.3 Toxic Today, Toxic Tomorrow

Much of the land the road will cut through is contaminated with toxic waste, the legacy of Glasgow’s industrial past. The M74’s proponents have always said that building the road would be an efficient way of dealing with this waste. From the Inquiry we found out that only the land directly underneath the road will be ‘treated’. The land would be covered in concrete, not decontaminated. There are no plans in this proposal to treat the land adjacent to the road upon which the proponents hope new developments will take place.

3.4 Creative Congestion Figures

The amount of traffic the road will generate was discovered to be 10 times what the proponents had previously stated. The proponents also admitted that no funds had been set aside to tackle this and that plans for improvements to Glasgow’s public transport were only “aspirations”.

3.5 Public Private Preposterous

On the first day of the Inquiry it was discovered that the Executive are considering a Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme to pay for the M74. As the Inquiry reopened in January 2004, we learned that the Executive was advertising for a PFI contract and the M74 could cost anywhere up to £1 billion (rather than the £500 million previously claimed).4. Why are we opposed to the M74?

4.1 Traffic growth

The motorway will not solve congestion in Glasgow - building the M74 will instead add to traffic growth in the area. An independent study commissioned by the Scottish Executive concluded that Glasgow in 2010 with the M74 scheme built "shows a network which is more congested (even with the additional capacity provided by the M74) than in 2000” (Central Scotland Transport Corridor Studies (CSTCS) Final Report on the M74 Corridor, 2002).

It is predicted that construction of the M74 will:

* Increase traffic levels on Glasgow South Side radial roads
* Increase traffic levels entering Glasgow from the east
* Compound congestion problems on both the M8 and M77 west and south of the city.

The Scottish Executive estimates that without action traffic levels in Scotland will grow by 27% over the next 20 years. The Executive has set itself the target of stabilising traffic at 2001 levels by 2021. However, in Glasgow the Executive seems happy to allow traffic to increase by some 40%. In 1994 the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) concluded that development of new road capacity tends to generate new traffic - and Scottish government has recognised as long ago as 1998 that a “‘predict and provide’ approach to road building is unaffordable, unsustainable and, ultimately, self defeating" and that "[n] ew road capacity can generate more usage and add to congestion” (Transport White Paper ‘Travel Choices for Scotland’, Scottish Office, 1988).

4.2 Failure to investigate the alternatives

Unlike other roads schemes, no study has been conducted into the possible alternatives to building the M74 extension. The lack of a multi-modal study for this project is particularly alarming since this is the UK’s most expensive road scheme. Failure to carry out such an assessment means the taxpayer has no idea if this project is the best environmental option or represents value for money.

4.3 Environmental justice

The Scottish Executive has indicated that environmental justice should be at the heart of policy. Completion of the M74 runs contrary to such a commitment. 59% of City of Glasgow households have no access to a car (Scottish Executive Statistical Bulletin Trn/2001/4, Dec 2001) yet nearly £500 million of taxpayers’ money is to be spent to constructing an elevated motorway through some of Glasgow’s most deprived communities.

4.4 Climate change emissions

Road transport is the second fastest growing source of carbon dioxide (CO2) and the Scottish Executive’s Transport Delivery Report produced in March 2002 acknowledges that “action is required now to prevent rising carbon dioxide emissions from road transport”. Indeed the UK Climate Change Strategy requires that the transport sector delivers 40% of the UK’s proposed reduction of CO2 levels by 2010.

Completion of the M74 would only add to climate change emissions, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) identifies that the scheme will result in increased CO2 emissions “due to the overall increase in vehicle kilometres travelled”.

Scotland is falling behind in tackling climate change. Between 1990 and 1999, Scotland's CO2 emissions fell by only 3.5% while England's fell by 11%. Research for the Scottish Executive shows that, even assuming the current UK and Scottish Climate Change Programmes are effective, Scotland cannot reach the Labour Party commitment of a 20% cut in CO2 from 1990 levels by 2010.

4.5 Air pollution

Air pollution, mainly from vehicle exhausts, kills more people every year in Scotland than die in road accidents. Estimates put the number of deaths a year resulting from air pollution at 2000 - five times more than in road accidents.

Toxic emissions from road traffic now represent the principal threat to air quality in urban areas. Motor vehicles are responsible for: 64% of benzene emissions, 71% of carbon monoxide emissions, 66% of lead emissions and 50% of nitrogen dioxide emissions. According to the British Medical Association (BMA), strategies to reduce the harmful effects of motor cars such as emission controls will be “outweighed by projected increases in motor traffic” while proposals that reduce traffic could “lead to a broad range of health benefits”.

The threat from increased air pollution that the M74 poses to Glasgow’s air quality, not to mention public health, is acknowledged within the EIA. In addition to increased levels of PM10 and NO2 “within 100m of the new road” the EIA also predicts that “combined with the high background concentrations, these could result in a marginal exceedence of the Government’s air quality objectives (AQOs) for these pollutants”.

Air pollution problems will not just be comfined to the local environment. The EIA also predicts the M74 extension will lead to increased “global emissions of CO2, NO2 and PM10 due to the overall increase in vehicle kilometres travelled once the scheme is open”. Overall the EIA predicts increased “emissions of carbon monoxide and total hydrocarbons”.

4.6 Contaminated land

Several of the sites along the route have been recorded in the EIA as being contaminated with heavy metals, PCBs, asbestos and several chemical agents including chromium. No mention is made of the quantities involved and the potential risks to workers and residents inadequately assessed.

It is also noted that the contamination is to be contained with liners and slurry burns. This is unacceptable. The technology exists to bio-remediate the land on site. Although expensive, it is the only acceptable means of rendering the land clean.

5. A biased and unfair planning process

The planning process for the M74 has been inherently flawed in as much as the developer, the planning authority and the planning inquiry process are all led by the Scottish Executive – while a final Ministerial decision on the project will also be taken by the Scottish Executive.

JAM74 believes that the process carried out by the Scottish Executive has been biased and unfair. First Minister Jack McConnell displayed bias as a result of his remarks in the Parliament when he said that “I support the construction in question” and “[w]e have committed ourselves to it” days before the start of the Inquiry. McConnell's statements were tantamount to announcing the result of the Inquiry before it even started. If McConnell only wore the hat of the 'scheme proposer' this would be fair enough; but from the final arbiter of the decision it is unacceptable.