Newbury falls silent but bypass echoes with screeching brakes

THE NEWBURY bypass - the pounds 100m eight-mile road that triggered some of the Britain's most violent environmental protests - has transformed life in the Berkshire town within a month of opening, and led to a series of accidents.

Three weeks ago, Newbury's main shopping street was clogged with cars and lorries. Now it is now full of pedestrians. "Eerie" is the word that crops up among residents, who talk of the unearthly quiet that greeted them when they woke on the morning of 17 November, hours after the road's undignified opening, held at night to avoid demonstrations.

But in the first month half a dozen motorists have come to grief on its slip roads, complaining they are too short, making it difficult to get up to speed, and that they lack countdown markers. One resident, the Rev Father John Lewis, who was involved in an accident, said: "I am delighted that local pressure has at last brought us relief from the traffic congestion which has blighted our town for so long. But I feel it is vital that all who have it in their power to influence the Highways Authority should do everything possible to ensure that the agency reviews the safety of these junctions before the bypass claims its first fatality."

The bypass scheme had strong local support, surveys showing 90 per cent of residents in favour, and it was backed by businesses, the MP and councils. Linda Beardmore, area manager for the Thames Valley chamber of commerce, said many had been worried about whether the road-link would be a success. "But on that first morning the traffic just disappeared and it seemed that the scheme had been justified. It was eerie - the road noise had gone in an instant."

But officials fear that unless they are able to persuade people to switch from the car to public transport, the gains could swiftly be lost as traffic returns to the town. They believe that because the Government's transport strategy has stalled, Newbury will not get the trains and bus services it needs to attract people out of their cars.

David Becket, the Liberal Democrat chairman of the transportation committee of West Berkshire council, the new unitary authority, said the council had a narrow "window of opportunity" to solve the area's traffic problems. The council acted within three days of the bypass opening to close the main shopping street to traffic between 10am and 6pm.

"Until the measures in the transport White Paper can be adopted and financed, the traffic situation will be as bad again and the question we can't answer is whether it will take five or 10 years," said Mr Becket. "But unless we do something the traffic will come back."

Local transport plans (LTP), which will supersede the method of funding for councils, will not come on stream until 2001. A spokeswoman for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, said the five- year LTPs would replace the annual fight for cash.

She added: "We know money is tight but we are trying to change things so local authorities can plan properly. That's why we have issued draft guidance on local transport." The annual local transport grant has fallen from pounds 830m in 1996/7 to pounds 622m this year.

This week the Government publishes its long-awaited "daughter" document on workplace parking charges, the first step towards allowing councils to raise money for local transport by taxing business parking.

Pressure group Transport 2000 said much of the traffic feared by West Berkshire council would be generated by new developments that were bound to spring up along the path of the bypass. The group spokesperson, Lynn Sloman, said: "It will more difficult to prevent new McDonald's and superstores because the area has already been ruined."

One stalwart opponent of the bypass is Jill Fraser, artistic director of the Watermill Theatre in Bagnor, a village in the River Lambourn valley, a mile from the road. "When you wake you can hear the noise, and during the rush hour it is much noisier," she said.

The Government's roads review axed 18 major road schemes and shelved a further 60 despite overwhelming public demand for highways and bypasses. Almost 90 per cent of responses to a year-long consultation were in favour of road-building, but Ministers opted to proceed with only 37 of 125 possible schemes.

A repeat of Newbury is looming in Warwickshire at the Birmingham North Relief Road, Britain's first privately built toll road, where protesters have dug themselves in. In Brighton, residents are said to have damaged cars using a "rat run" to get access to the town's new bypass. But at Thorney, near Peterborough, a rally was held to demand building of the A47 bypass, one of 44 schemes being considered under a new approach that looks at alternatives to new roads.