16 January 2013
Police and bailiffs have been evicting protesters from the two remaining protestor's camps in Sussex where activists have gathered to to the construction of the £93.8m Bexhill to Hastings link road. Combe Haven Defenders reported two arrests this afternoon.
A statement on the Combe Haven Defenders website this morning reads:
Opponents of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) are defending trees and occupying tunnels at their main protest camp in Crowhurst. Security guards and bailiffs, supported by police, began attempts to evict the camp at 8am today. The main camp, which has been in place since 21 December, is located on the proposed route of the BHLR close to Adam’s Farm, Crowhurst.
Further trees on route are occupied by protestors at nearby “Decoy Camp”. The peaceful protests against the road– which have now been running for a month, with 12 arrests – have seized national attention over the past week.
Tree-felling work for the road started on 14 December 2012 and represents the first significant work on the highly-controversial £100m road, one of over forty “zombie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resuscitated as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-building programme in 25 years.
CPRE Sussex raised the question of the controversial Bexhill-Hastings Link Road with transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin when he spoke at the CPRE annual lecture in November 2012.
Challenging him on the need for the new road, CPRE Sussex director Georgia Wrighton asked him: “Why is the Government funding the Bexhill-Hastings link road when the Department for Transport declared it poor value for money, East Sussex County Council failed to adequately explore alternatives and when convincing evidence of its benefits had not been provided?”. McLoughlin didn't comment directly on the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road, but answered, "Decisions on road schemes will always be controversial,
we do it because the government think there are benefits to roads in some cases."
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