We successfully stopped the A38 road expansion with a Crowd Justice campaign before and we can do it again with your help. 

If the A38 development consent order had not been quashed in March 2021, then thousands of trees would now be felled, wildlife habitats would be destroyed and polluting construction work would be underway.

National Highways (formerly Highways England) are still trying to bulldoze through the A38 Derby Junctions road scheme, despite our successful legal challenge in March 2021, when consent for the road expansion was quashed in the High Court on the grounds of climate change. 

Transport Minister Grant Shapps admitted he had acted unlawfully when he approved the scheme as he failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the carbon emissions.  

However, he has said he will redetermine the application after seeking further information from National Highways and objectors on their plans to expand the A38 between the Kingsway and Little Eaton roundabouts, effectively turning part of it into a motorway by creating six lanes of traffic along with huge concrete underpasses and flyovers. 

This is despite knowing that the emissions from the road's construction, the pollution from the resulting increased traffic and the loss of thousands of trees would be disastrous for the global fight against climate change.

We need your help to hire legal experts to submit evidence to stop this scheme being pushed through.

Construction of the new road scheme will involve:

• producing 131,000 tonnes of carbon emissions

• cutting down thousands of trees around Kingsway, Markeaton and Little Eaton
  

• destroying a huge amount of precious, established wildlife habitat and local biodiversity

• felling a nearly 300 year old veteran oak tree that provides shelter and food to birds, bats, insects, fungi and other creatures. National Highways plan to turn this living tree into a "totem pole" for bat roosting. Apparently this destruction counts as "mitigation" and "biodiversity net gain".

• removing some of our public open spaces, including part of Markeaton and Mackworth Park

• increasing pollution throughout surrounding areas as diverted traffic from the A38 roadworks will rat run through residential streets 

• demolishing decent housing alongside Queensway after evicting families from their homes. 

After construction:

• It will open up the west of Derby for even more unsustainable developments. This is the main reason developers, local authorities and the Government want this road expansion to happen - to increase road capacity for even more traffic from these developments. Derby City Council stated in their Local Transport Plan that the “A38 junction improvements will release land for development in and around the city.” This is despite policy advice that new housing should be low carbon and connected to public transport and active travel links to reduce transport emissions.
  
  
• It will increase traffic capacity, meaning that more cars and lorries will drive through the city every day, which will lead to more air and noise pollution for residents.
  
  
• Those who want this scheme argue that it will improve journey times and improve the flow of traffic, but this will not last long with the minimum of 11,000 new developments around the A38 Derby junctions area. The Secretary of State’s Decision Letter on the A38 stated this number. Induced traffic is a well documented result of building and expanding new roads.
  
  
• The loss of green space to more tarmac and concrete will increase the risk of floods.
  
  
• There will be even more carbon emissions from induced traffic. National Highways estimates an increase of 51,000 tons of CO2 up to 2037. On top of the 101 million tonnes of CO2 that is expected to be produced from the A38 road operation up to 2037. 
  
  
• There will be more carbon emissions from the land opened up to developments.

This case is unprecedented and will have implications for other carbon intensive Government schemes...

If we succeed in stopping the A38 road scheme again, it could have far-reaching consequences nationally. That’s because the Government is planning to spend £27 billion over the next five years on building 4,000 miles of new roads around the country (Road Investment Strategy 2 – RIS2). This will increase carbon emissions on the strategic road network by 20 millions of tons at a time when they must reduce buy 167 million tons. 

How does the Government get away with approving these damaging schemes? It does it by looking at each new road scheme in isolation, without taking into account the carbon emissions from other planned developments. National Highways is arguing that the tonnes of carbon emitted from the A38 expansion is a tiny proportion of national carbon emissions, and is therefore insignificant, but it’s colossal when added to all the other proposed developments locally and nationally. 

It begs the question, do Government ministers not understand carbon budgets and the catastrophic impacts of climate change... or are they wilfully ignoring the climate science and environmental laws for short term economic gains? Either way, they are risking millions of lives and jeopardising the future of human civilisation. 

If we are able to prove how detrimental the A38 expansion would be in the global fight against climate change, RIS2 would also be threatened, meaning that it may lead to many other environmentally damaging new roads plans being scrapped.

Air pollution is deadly 

It is totally irresponsible and dangerous when the Government knows that pollution kills and Derby has already been identified as having unsafe levels of pollution at sites in the inner city. Road traffic pollution is a silent killer. It can cause asthma, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and dementia, among many other health conditions. 

Some try to claim the scheme will make air quality safe around the A38. It may lower pollution in some areas if traffic is idling less, but there will still be unsafe levels of air pollution as long as road vehicles are burning fossil fuels and generating particulate matter from tyres and brakes. If you look at the planning documents and compare them to WHO recommended levels of safe air pollution, they will still fail to meet them. 

Climate Crisis: "Code red for humanity"

The United Nations has called the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report "a code red for humanity", stating that we need immediate action to cut carbon emissions if we are to avert catastrophe, and that "there is no room for excuses". 

The naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said climate change is humanity's greatest threat in thousands of years - it could lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of "much of the natural world". 

 Shockingly, our Transport Minister Grant Shapps and National Highways still seem to think it’s worth risking billions of lives and the collapse of civilisation by pushing through carbon intensive, nature destroying, outdated road schemes. They are ignoring these deafening alarm bells about the climate crisis, putting all of our lives in grave danger while sending future generations into a hellish future of deadly extreme weather events and wars over habitable land, food and water - all for “improved journey times” and “economic benefits” dispute the mountains of evidence that shows that road schemes fail to deliver these in the long term. 

This is urgent

The Government and local authorities who support this scheme are prioritising more tarmac for more traffic and more profits for developers over our health, over green spaces, over wildlife and over legally binding climate action. 

They should be doing everything they can to prevent further climate change and reduce pollution. They should not be spending £250 million in Derby (and £90 billion nationally over the next 15 years) on expanding roads that will help accelerate us towards a climate catastrophe and will reduce the quality of life of many of the city’s residents. To stand any chance of limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5°C we need to stop building roads and stop increasing road traffic NOW, not in a few years' time. The UN says that we are already "perilously close" to this temperature rise, so we have very little time left.

We really can't let this new road scheme go ahead. We have to take drastic action in the fight against climate change. That means not increasing carbon emissions and investing in sustainable, low carbon transport instead of even more roads.

How can you help?

We cannot allow National Highways and the Government to continue to pander to the powerful road lobby and put billions of lives at risk from climate breakdown. 

We need to raise an initial £3,500 to pay for legal experts to fight plans for the A38 expansion and we would be so grateful if you could donate to our Crowd Justice page to help us put a stop to this destructive new road scheme once and for all. 

We successfully stopped the A38 expansion before and we can do it again with your help. If the development consent order had not been quashed in March 2021, then the thousands of trees would now be felled, wildlife habitats would be destroyed and polluting construction work would be underway. 

Whatever amount you can give will help enormously. 

Thank you! We are so grateful for your donation and your support. Please spread the word by sharing this page and by telling as many people as you can about it. 

You may also like to join our Facebook group to keep in touch and find out about the latest developments.

Find out more about the A38 Derby Junctions road scheme here: https://www.a38derbychaos.org/