Criticism must be objective
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• People who damned progress for the sake of it and who claimed, for example, that motorways destroyed the area through which they passed when clearly this was not so, not only discredited the undoubted and proven skills of the planners, but left themselves open to ridicule, Mr G. Turvey, secretary of the FTA, told the annual luncheon of the Association's Scottish division in Cumbernauld last week.
Shap Fell, for instance, was, he said, still the same bleak, desolate and, to some, exciting place, that it was before the arrival of M6. But what a difference that road had made.
The motives of many environmentalists were often far more selfish and self-centred than they would have people believe. Phrases such as "preserving our precious heritage" could so easily mean: "I know we want better roads, but not near my house" or, "I am all for an improved standard of living and a better way of life as long as I don't have to change my ways."
It was right that those in transport had increasingly been required to justify their actions, continued Mr Turvey. Lorries did create nuisance and were noisy, ponderous and, sometimes, dirtier than they should be. They did cause congestion and it was right that the transport industry should be put on its mettle to see what could be done about it for the good of the whole. Equally it had the right to demand the same standards of those who criticized. They equally had to be objective and to look beyond their own selfinterest.
The transport man who unnecessarily sent his lorry past schools and homes and down country lanes and then claimed there was no alternative, when he really meant that the other and preferable route might add one per cent to his costs, deceived no one. The environmentalist, who postulated that a new road would be an environmental and national disaster when he meant that in the short term it might knock £500 off the value of his house, had to be exposed in his true colours, concluded Mr Turvey.