'Corruption' claim at Al link road inquiry
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DEPARTMENT of Transport road planners were accused of getting their priorities wrong for corrupt reasons at the inquiry into the route of the Al/M1 link road last week.
The claim came from North Craven Action Group spokesman Bob Leakey who told the inquiry that it should be con3idering the whole route of the road and not just the part between Walshford and Dishforth or which orders had so far )een published.
Mr Leakey claimed that the min purpose behind the milding of motorways was to reate the need for more roads — to serve not public transtort but the road-building inIUStry.
Planning inspector Ralph t.olph said that he regarded he existing order for the route o be just as much in t he meling pot as the line of the link road — "they can still be thrown out," he said.
He added that it was an expensive and time-consuming business to work out the line of a road, and before that was done, the corridor in which the road should be built should be 4 located.
If the Al road routed between the Walshford and Disforth areas is improved, it would imply that the Department of Transport was committing itself to an Al /M1 link routed to the east of Leeds.
DTp counsel David Mole said that the inquiry should answer two questions: whether the link road was needed, and whether it should go to the east or west of Leeds.
The present traffic on the Al posed a question because of the volume of traffic. Something had to be done now, said Mr Mole, By 1986 the, traffic on the Al would be nearly a third more than at present and he explained that the route to the east of Leeds, apparently preferred by the DTp, would cost £36m, while...other routes would cost up to £61m.
The landscape would be affected wherever the road went, but the terrain to the west of Leeds posed more problems than that to the east.
The western route would swallow more farm land and create more disturbance than alternative routes, said Mr Mole.