Road protest (UK)

Road protest in the United Kingdom usually occurs as a reaction to a stated intention by the empowered authorities to build a new road, or to modify an existing road. Protests may also be made by those wishing to see new roads built or improvements made to existing roads. Motivations for protests may be altruistic or selfish. In some cases, protests have also acted as a training ground for individuals and groups who continue to be active in campaigning and advocacy.

Motivations have changed over time. Early actions, such as the response to the 1970s London urban motorway proposals, tended to be based on local environmental and social issues. Routing was contentious, while alternative schemes involving tunneling were generally not available because of the difficulty of planning an unobstructed route or on cost grounds. Surface-level urban motorways and junctions required large areas of land take, while visually intrusive elevated sections depressed house prices or introduced urban blight to wide areas. Socially, communities could be flattened or split in two with little access between them. Environmental considerations were not just focused on visual impact, but also noise and pollution—vehicle's emissions were not restricted at that time. Some of the local "NIMBY" issues could be mitigated through the scheme proposer making concessions to access and small changes to routing, while increasing the levels of compensation would sometimes quieten objections and smooth the passage of a public enquiry.

At that time more consideration was given to economic issues and how the effect on the community and the built environment could be mitigated—with schemes sometimes going so far as to relocate historic buildings affected by road schemes. Since the 1980s much wider social and environmental concerns have been called into question; policy changed to allow environmentalists to be increasingly involved over the loss of wildlife and its habitat. Since the 1990s there has been more research and awareness of induced demand and climate change, which are often now central to the arguments put up by some groups of protesters.

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