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Campaigners against the West of England’s Metrobus project were in London today to call on the Government to scrap its funding for the controversial public transport project.
The Alliance to rethink Metrobus group delivered a letter, and a cardboard white elephant, to the office of Baroness Kramer, the Minister in charge of local transport at the Department for Transport.
The letter calls for the withdrawal of Government funds for all three of the West of England Local Transport Board’s Metrobus schemes.
They add that they “consider that all three schemes are unfit for public transport purpose in a modern city”, citing low forecasts for passenger numbers and “collective environmental damage [that] makes them unfit for our Green Capital 2015”.
Pip Sheard, spokesperson for the Alliance, said: “The Alliance would prefer the [Bristol] mayor to pull Bristol out of all three Metrobus schemes now without further expense and just use our own Metrobus contribution for smaller and more popular transport schemes.
“The mayor [George Ferguson] has been threatened with legal action by North Somerset and South Gloucestershire if he unilaterally pulls the city out of any Metrobus scheme.
“So the only way to stop a Metrobus scheme and to get the mayor off the legal hook is either for Government funds to be withdrawn or for the councillors on Bristol’s planning committee to turn down a scheme.”
A planning meeting is being next held on Wednesday, August 27 to discuss the planning application for the northern section of the Metrobus system.
