If you read the Exmouth Journal a couple of weeks ago, you couldn’t help but notice much rejoicing over the £15.7m that Exmouth will receive from the government. This will be used to extend Dinan Way and link it to the A376. Now, as someone who has previously commuted to Exeter, I understand the problems associated with traffic leaving Exmouth. However, we are in a climate crisis and shouldn't be building more roads. We need to stop this 'business as usual' attitude and look for different solutions. Ploughing millions of pounds into a new road when we desperately need to reduce carbon emissions isn't just crazy it's threatening our planet’s web of life, which very much includes humans.

East Devon MP, Simon Jupp said that this investment will improve air quality. However, it will in no way reduce air pollution. All it will do is simply divert pollution from one area to another. Those in the town centre will find their air is less polluted whereas those on the outskirts of town will breath in more vehicle exhaust emissions. In fact, the overall pollution levels will be higher as building the road will create carbon emissions and then a new road will encourage more driving! Mr Jupp also describes Dinan Way as a ring road, which makes it sound like it is in some out of town setting (not that polluting our countryside is okay) however Dinan Way is a residential area. Not many houses front on to it but along almost the entire length there are houses backing on to it, where children play in their back gardens and people sit to enjoy the nature right outside their house. Then, of course, there are all the residential streets coming off Dinan Way as well as the Goodmores housing development currently being built to attract people into the area. I'm not sure if 3 West, the company currently carving up the site, will be mentioning this new ring road in its glossy advertising!

On a more positive note, the funding will also be used to fund improved walking and cycling routes, and bus services to Exeter as stated by Councillor Andrea Davis. This, of course, is welcome though I would say there did used to be, until very recently, a frequent (every 15 minute) bus service from Brixington via central Exmouth to Exeter which now only runs every 30 minutes. This service also used to go directly to the train station linking the Dinan Way area effectively to train services out of Exmouth. In a climate crisis we need to be jumping out of our cars and onto the public transport system. This is where funding should be directed. I welcome the greater connectivity for cycle ways to the Exe estuary that this funding will provide, though I worry that this new road will simply encourage more and more people to get in their car instead of using the sustainable options.

I do understand that lorries having to go through the town centre to get to Liverton Business Park and retail areas such as Tesco, Lidl and on to Budleigh is not ideal. I wish there had been some joined up thinking when these out of town developments were approved. I also wish that goods trains ran along the train line supplying our many local businesses that are sustainable and not planet-damaging in the way that the big companies so often are, with their profit before people and the planet attitude. We clearly aren’t in an ideal system but simply carrying on in the same way that has been going on for decades isn’t the right approach either. What we need now is radical thinking, outside the box, which puts the web of life at the forefront of decision-making. Funding bids that support local businesses, help Exmouth residents to return to public transport and that does not simply dig up more green spaces for short-term human gain. For it doesn’t matter how much profit is made or how accessible places are if the planet we rely on is not healthy, as is the case already. We need to face the reality of what we are doing to our planet and make drastic actions to reverse it.

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