The National Trust fights back

ON TUESDAY, a mechanical digger will be used to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister against plans to build a new section of the A3 through a Surrey beauty spot.

Demonstrations against aspects of the Government's pounds 2bn annual road programme are not uncommon, but this one marks a significant change in tactics for the National Trust, which owns the threatened land. It has decided to adopt an aggressive new campaigning style which could lead to the fate of more plans being decided by Parliament.

According to Alistair Dick, a transport consultant who is advising the body on the A3 scheme: 'It is unprecedented for the trust to take the lead in a campaign in this way. It normally prefers to operate behind closed doors, negotiating with the Department of Transport.'

Next month the trust plans to hold a high-profile press conference attended by its director-general, Angus Stirling. The battle over the realignment of 6.2kms (3.85 miles) of the existing A3 through the Devil's Punch Bowl, a local beauty spot, and Hindhead Common is likely to be the first in a series of campaigns which the trust is prepared to fight publicly and to use its special legal status. It has a list of 52 road schemes directly affecting its properties.

Trust land is protected from development under the 1907 National Trust Act which makes it 'inalienable'. If the trust refuses to cede the land for a development, it can only be taken away by a decision of Parliament.

Mr Stirling said: 'There are a dozen places where the proposals have a severely damaging effect on our property and we are prepared to take a very strong line.'

The trust has generally dealt with road schemes by trying to negotiate a better route or alignment which is not as damaging to its property. This has not always worked, and activists among the body's two million members have being pushing for a more bullish line. The trust's spokesman, Warren Davis, said: 'At times the DoT doesn't seem to take our views and suggestions into account. They do not take a sympathetic view of our concerns.'

The trust has only twice used its right to take cases to Parliament. In the late 1960s it lost one case at Saltram House near Plymouth but won the other, over a proposed reservoir at Hardcastle Crags, Yorkshire.

The trust's readiness to take on the DoT arises from anger that so many of its properties are being affected by road schemes and that so little thought has been given to the environmental effects of road planning. An unpublished response by the trust to the White Paper on the environment was highly critical of the DoT's approach, arguing that environmental assessments should be made before the line of a road is drawn.

Mr Stirling told the Independent on Sunday: 'What is so annoying is that the department carries out these schemes in a piecemeal fashion without undertaking a full environmental assessment of the whole route.'

The trust is also worried that, if it is seen to yield too readily on road schemes, its supporters will lose faith in it as a preserver of Britain's heritage and the supply of land from bequests will dry up. Professor Peter Donnelly, a campaigner against the A3 route, said: 'If the trust gives land away at the first demand, it will be betraying its moral responsibility.'

(Photograph and Graphic omitted)