Tree-felling for the BHLR started last Friday and represents the first significant work on the highly-contraversial £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 [2]. A major report by the Campaign for Better Transport provided details of 191 road projects – conservatively costed at £30bn – that are currently in the pipeline across England and Wales. Over forty of these projects are direct revivals from the Tories’ 1990s ‘Roads for Prosperity’ programme. [3]

The tree-felling for the BHLR has attracted significant protest and peaceful direct action every day since Friday, with a number of local people arrested including pensioners. The Combe Haven Defenders (CHD), are calling on 1,066 people from the local area and across the country to "pledge to take part in peaceful resistance to the construction of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road" [4].

A spokesperson for the Combe Haven Defenders said: "Events of the last week have demonstrated that a local people from a diverse range of backgrounds are passionately against this an environmentally disastrous white-elephant project that will increase overall traffic levels while derailing sustainable transport alternatives. We hope people will support, and maybe join, those brave folk up in the trees, all the way through Christmas and beyond, if necessary."

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NOTES
[1] www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] See 'Controversial 'zombie roads' scheme to be resuscitated', Guardian, 10 October 2012,  http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[3]  http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report
[4]  http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/pledge/