M25 widening - A disaster and a disgrace

Motorway madness

Widening of the M25 near Heathrow started on 5th June 2004. The stretch to be widened is between junctions 12 and 15 and the motorway will be up to 14 lanes wide.

The reason for widening is to cater for forecast extra traffic, including that generated by Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5). The widening is also needed so that a 'spur' road from T5 can be connected to the M25.

FOE is strongly opposed to road building and major road widening. This is because it is environmentally destructive and pointless. It is pointless because road building simply generates more traffic and therefore does not solve our transport problems.

Friends of the Earth Condemns M25 Widening

Friend of Earth has heard that widening of the M25 between Junctions 12 and 15 is starting on 5 Jan. The announcement about widening was made as long ago as July 1998, but it appears the government felt there was no great urgency as Heathrow Terminal 5 was not due to open for many years.

Nic Ferriday, spokesperson for West London Friends of the Earth, said "What a start to the new year! Nothing could show more clearly how the government is failing on all fronts. The government seems to have given up on sustainable transport policies. Instead of effecting a real shift to trains and buses, it is resorting to destructive and pointless road-building to support evermore cars [Note 1]. It has also given up on the environment, being prepared to generate even more air pollution [Note 2], trash fine wildlife sites [Note 3] and sacrifice the Green Belt [Note 4]."

Although it was denied by the government, everyone knows that the widening is because of Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5). Indeed, the scheme is directly dependent on it - a new link road from T5 connects directly into the M25 and some new lanes and slip roads have to be added to effect the connection. T5 will generate some 326 million extra km of road travel [Note 5] and much of this will be on the nearby M25 and M4.

The widening also highlights the way that the government policy is now being run by big business. Nic Ferriday commented "Before they came to power, Labour described the proposed widening of the M25 as "lunacy" [Note 6]. But when it came to power, it did not even wait for its own Road Review. Instead it succumbed to lobbying from BAA and decided to widen the M25 so that T5 could go ahead [Note 7]. And this was while the T5 Public Inquiry was still running, thereby proving that the government had already make up its mind on T5 and that the public inquiry was a charade." [Note 8]

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NOTES

0 When the widening was announced in 1998, a number of Press Releases were issued. These give further information and are attached after the notes 1-8.

1 Friends of the Earth's view, along with many other organisations and individuals, is that road building is pointless as well as destructive and expensive. A government committee, SACTRA, concluded what many of us have known for a long time - that building roads simply generates more traffic and does not solve congestion problems except for a short period. There is ample evidence of this, not least on the M25 itself. Road traffic needs to be stabilised instead of increasing year by year. Building roads and car parks is counter-productive because it supports and encourages even more car use. We believe that a 'modal shift' to buses and trains is needed, with more cycling and walking for local journeys.

2 Air pollution in the Heathrow/M25 area already breaches standards set by the government to protect human health. See, for example, the map at www.wlfoet5.demon.co.uk/airtransport/runway3threat.htm The government is clearly prepared to break its own standards. However, it cannot so easily ignore those standards when they have the force of EU law, as has been seen recently in respect of the third runway for Heathrow proposed in the airports White Paper.

3 The area near the M25 and the spur road between the M25 and T5 is rich in wildlife. The spur road will devastate the only known site in SE of England of plant water avens. See, for example, www.wlfoet5.demon.co.uk/archive/term5-i.htm This road building continues the environmental destruction caused by T5 itself - the T5 site used to be one of the best sites in the London area for wildfowl and waders.

4 The M25 already runs through London's Green Belt. Although the widening of the M25 itself is within the boundary of the M25 land, the new connections and slip roads will destroy more Green Belt There will also be impacts on the adjacent land, such as more noise and pollution, due to the construction and the extra traffic. The M25/T5 spur road and T5 itself are almost entirely on Green Belt.

5 Extensive traffic studies carried out for the government and BAA show the expected increase in traffic and congestion on selected roads. Friends of the Earth used the government's data to calculated the total extra traffic generated by T5. This totals an astonishing 326m km of travel every year. BAA wanted an extra 14,000 parking spaces, but this was cut back to 10,000 by the government, giving a total of 42,000 for Heathrow as a whole.

6 In June 1995, shortly before coming to power, John Prescott describe the then government's plan of widening the M25 as "lunacy". In April 1996 the shadow roads minister described the widening as "this £100 million motorway madness".

7 When Labour were elected to power, almost the first people through John Prescott's door were BAA. Metaphorically, they have never left. They have kept the government sweet with 'bungs' for the Millenium Dome (BAA and BA, the latter intended as the sole user of T5, contributed £9.8 million). BAA has also made some of the largest donations to the party, (In-kind donations from BAA to political parties in Feb 2001 to end Sept 2002 alone were: Labour Party £525,830.70; Conservative Party £441,907.50; LibDems £114,083.10. Source - Green Party.)

8 The evidence for this was clear within the T5 public inquiry and was submitted by Friends of the Earth in document FOE/130. (Available on request.) The document was ignored but was not refuted.

Links to other pages

• Earlier press release (archived page)
• Heathrow Terminal 5 (archived pages)
• Back to transport introduction