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3CG played a leading role in: stopping West Sussex County Council's (WSCC or the County's) major housebuilding initiatives – Imberhorne Village/Worsted Farm/Great Harwoods – totalling more than 5000 proposed units (1991); stopping the 4-lane Dual-Carriageway "M23-Link (with the A22) Strategic Route" the County wanted to build (1991); persuading the Environment Secretary that the County-proposed EG traffic relief provision – "A22/A264 EG by-pass" – in the 1991-proposed CountyStructure Plan must instead read "A22/A264 EG by-pass, or other appropriate improvements"(1993); persuading the Environment Secretary that the County-proposed "1500-new-house allocation" for EG must be removed from the Mid-Sussex (housing allocation) provision in the County Structure Plan (1993); encouraging the County to undertake a few of the on-line Junction and other traffic control/reduction improvements (1995-96), which the 3CG first produced and submitted to – and for five years were studiously ignored by – the County as a series of detailed papers in (March-May) 1991.
By-pass position
3CG is perhap best known – and most reviled by its roadbuilding/housebuilding opponents – for its position on the proposed by-pass. It has shown that the County's three Traffic Studies completed since 1988 have failed to demonstrate that a by-pass would ease area traffic problems – more likely that it would make them worse. It has emphasised that a by-pass misses the modern point, since EG's major traffic flow is no longer North/South, but East/West; and since only 20 per cent is through-traffic and the rest (80 per cent) commutes at peak-hours between EG and Crawley/Gatwick – and hence cannot be "by-passed". It has repeatedly warned that new road-building inevitably is followed by major housing/industrial development – and vice versa.
Commonsense Traffic Relief
3CG stresses that commonsense, and experience elsewhere, make clear that on-line improvements, or "Alternative Remedies" (AR's) – of which there is a choice from many – to the existing road system should first be implemented. If these work, then the problem is solved. If they don't, then that is the time to consider a by-pass – which, it must be emphasised, wherever it might go would clearly create extensive, permanent damage in this area of extreme environmental vulnerability, great countryside beauty, and primary tourism/economic value – our life-line to the future.
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