Birmingham Northern Relief Road

John Prescott has gone motor-mad, approving 27 miles of road for MEL (Midland Express Limited), despite the fact that local Labour MPs were elected on the strength of a promise not to go ahead with the road.

The planned dual carriageway will devastate Birmingham's greenbelt, destroying SSSI's, archeological and ecological sites, farmland and trees. The public enquiry concluded that pollution would neither affect the 3 schools adjacent to the road nor the 6 others in the vicinity.

The local campaign against the road has been going on for 18 years and efforts to find legal loopholes to stop the project continue. Activists have been occupying the proposed site for three months now, building an info centre and treehouses. More defences are on the way.

The site is situated in Greenwood, on the A38 between Bassetts Pole and Weeford Junction, next to the ARC gravel works. Get the 110 bus from Corporation St. in Birmingham city centre to Bassetts Pole then walk 1.5 miles north along the A38 to the ARC gravel works on the left. Hitching: the A38 can be accessed from the Spaghetti Junction on the M6. Get on the A38 heading out of Birmingham towards Lichfield, past Bassetts Pole until the ARC works (approx 1.5 miles). For more info: 0797 0301978