Please sign our Petition to Save Arundel's Countryside by rejecting National Highways' Grey Route for the A27 Arundel Bypass and preferring the Arundel Alternative.

(This Petition originally asked for all the long bypass options to be rejected. In 2020, all were rejected except for Grey, now the Preferred Route. To avoid confusion as people continue to sign, the petition wording now simply rejects Grey.)

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We petition the Secretary of State and Department for Transport, the Chancellor, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Roads), the Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Secretary of State for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the South Downs National Park Authority, National Highways, Andrew Griffith MP, West Sussex County Council, Arun District Council, Arundel Town Council and Walberton Parish Council, to:

1. REJECT the Grey route for the Arundel bypass which severs the Arun valley watermeadows, Tortington and Binsted and Walberton villages, our beautiful countryside and rural heritage.
2. RECOMMEND that another option, less damaging to countryside and villages, should be preferred by the Department for Transport: the Arundel Alternative, a short, wide-single carriageway bypass. The Arundel Alternative provides all we need to keep traffic sufficiently moving - and it doesn't cost the earth.

Reasons:

• The Grey route, Highways England's fourth attempt at a long new Preferred Route for the A27 around Arundel, is disproportionately expensive and damaging.
• The 8km dual new Grey Route will cause local species extinctions, wreck local rural communities, and make the climate and environment emergency worse.
• The Arundel Alternative is affordable and supported by the environmental organizations
• I care about future generations, species loss and climate change
• I care about the countryside and rural communities. The historic village of Binsted is set in wooded and wetland countryside in the parish of Walberton, West Sussex, and Tortington is also a historic wooded and wetland estate landscape. Partly within the National Park, these areas are a haven for wildlife, with an active community and rural businesses in them and in Walberton Binsted and Fontwell - Many visitors value the area for quiet recreation.
• The noise and visual damage to a much-visited area of the National Park would be severe, and the damage to the beauty of Arundel's watermeadows even greater than when this was the reason for cancelling a previous Preferred Route in 1993.

Signing is also opting in to be kept informed about our campaign to save Arun's beautiful countryside. Your contact details will not be shared with any other organizations or used for any other purposes. Should you wish to not receive occasional emails at important stages in this battle; an 'unsubscribe' link is provided at the foot of every email.

Arundel Bypass Neighbourhood Committee (ABNC) will submit this petition on behalf of the Stop the Arundel Bypass (SAB) Alliance. Other local groups in this alliance include Arundel SCATE, and, Walberton Friends & Neighbours.

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After signing our petition, please also:

1. Write to National Highways: A27ArundelBypass@HighwaysEngland.co.uk
2. Email your friends, MP or councillors asking them to help Save Arundel's Countryside
3. Promote our campaign on social media, including:
   - Follow us on www.twitter.com/arundelbypass
   - Like our Facebook page www.facebook.com/arundelbypass

To find out more about the Bypass options:

• Click here for the Arundel Bypass Neighbourhood Committee's website
• Click here for Arundel SCATE's website
• Click here for the A27 Arundel Alternative's website

To find out more about the beautiful rural areas we are asking you to help us save:

• Click here to read about Arundel's amazing countryside
• Click here to read about Binsted Village which could be ruined
• Click here to read about Tortington Village which could be ruined
• Click here to read about the parish of Walberton, Binsted & Fontwell

Today, more voices for a saner, more responsible roadbuilding option - including your voice - need to be heard, and heard more loudly, to Save Arundel's Countryside. Please share with your friends and encourage them to join you in signing.

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Background information

In 2017, Highways England chose to take forward A27 Arundel Bypass Option 5A, their Preferred Route, to the next stage of consultation. Option 5A is the most damaging Option for the natural and rural environment and to the special qualities of the South Downs National Park. Amber and Magenta in the 2019 consultation were similar to Option 5A.

Option 5A was chosen after a badly executed Consultation, on a poor range of options excluding local suggestions. Indequate and misleading information was given to consultees. It was chosen in the face of evidence and objections by the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA), Natural England, and others.

• The SDNPA brought a Judicial Review case on the grounds that impacts on the National Park, and options with less impact, had not been properly considered; local environmental campaigner Dr Emma Tristram, brought a Judicial Review case on the grounds of the many errors and omissions in the misdirected consultation.
• That's why Highways England had to hold another non-statutory consultation in 2019. They say it is because they have found new environmental data: they have, but it is only 'new' because, in the last consultation, they chose to ignore the environmental data provided by local charity Arun Countryside Trust (MAVES), continuing to claim for example that they had no evidence of bats after ACT-MAVES had sent them professional survey reports recording 13 species. Their own surveys, after the Judicial Review forced them to survey all the routes before choosing a new Preferred Option, have confirmed the facts that they wished to ignore. Highways England cannot be trusted with our environment and climate.
• In October 2020 Highways England announced the £450M Grey Route to be their new Preferred Route.
• Highways England are still interested in one thing only: building as many and as big new roads as they can get away with. It is what they were created to do. It will take voter pressure, and a new public environmental awareness, to stop them. Each one of us can do something to help bring that about. Write to your MP, your local authority, and vote for your values. It's our world.