VIDEO: New Arundel and Chichester bypasses are '˜not the answer', says Green MEP Keith Taylor

Green MEP Keith Taylor visited Arundel and Chichester this week. Photo by Derek Martin

Mr Taylor, who is Green MEP for the South East of England, said on Tuesday: “This is a beautiful part of the country and I can understand why people want to protect it.”

“There isn’t a demonstrated need to do what the highways agency want to do, which is to build an expressway which zooms past Arundel and Chichester.

“I think the needs of the local population are more important then getting people from A to B as quickly as possible.

“When you’re looking at the impact of a road through this area, it would disect communities. It would provide a very noisy and smelly obstacle and we don’t need it.

“This solution is to the last century’s challenges. The challenge now is to get people to live alongside roads, and to be able to use them and benefit from them.

“I perfectly understand people in Chichester and Arundel saying ‘there’s too much traffic, I want a bypass’ but actually what I think they want is a road system that works.

“And that doesn’t automatically mean we build big new roads, because when you do that you get more cars, more congestion and more pollution. “Really I don’t think that’s the answer.”

Land to the north of Chichester where a new road will now not be built

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Chichester residents met and spoke with Keith Taylor about the plans

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