"Britain isn't big enough for us to be pouring more and more concrete over its green and pleasant land."

Firstly, concrete is no longer regarded as a suitable material for road building due to its poor surface quality and increased noise levels. Tarmac is the prefered material — somewhat worrying that our new Transport Secretary hasn't even noticed this whilst driving around the country.

Secondly, pro-rata, Britain has far fewer motorways than all other major European countries, and none of those countries are even remotely 'covered in tarmac'.

These three graphs compare motorway length with population and land area for countries across Europe.

Our green and pleasant land

The reality is very different and is best illustrated by a wonderful book called "England The Photographic Atlas". This is published by Getmapping.com and uses aerial photographs from a millenium project to create a photomosiac of the entire country. (Similar books covering Scotland and Wales are in the pipeline).

The immediate impression that the book gives is that England is still very much a green and pleasant land.
Turn to any page and the overwhelmingly dominant colour is green. Even in cities, the combination of parkland, gardens, roadside verges, and trees result in a distinctly green tinge.

 
The sample photo on the right shows the M4 around junction 14 in Berkshire. The fields that were there before the motorway was built are still there, and the countryside is still as green and lush as it was when the Romans built the road that has since become the barely visible B4000 running parallel to the motorway on its northern side.

On the 1:36000 scale photos like this which are used for much of the country, it can be seen how the width of a motorway is far less than the width of the average field. In fact you could put half a dozen motorways across most fields and still leave room for fluffy bunny rabbits to hop about.

We wonder if those who claim the country is being 'covered in tarmac' are looking at small scale maps of large areas on which the width of roads is grossly exaggerated to make them obvious. On a 1:10000000 scale wall map of the UK, a motorway may be shown as being 1mm wide. This equates to 1km, when in reality motorways are only about 32m wide — 1/30 of their apparent width on a map. Surely no-one could be so stupid as to believe that thick lines on a small map represent real tarmac on the ground?
 

A three year study by the University of Surrey on the environmental impact of the Newbury Bypass has shown that it has actually protected the environment. See our Press Release 318.

Birds of prey are often to be seen hovering over motorway embankments. This indicates that the embankments serve as a nature reserve and provide an excellent hunting ground as they are rarely if ever disturbed. They are the modern day equivalent of hedgerows.

Lack of investment in roads

Road length & Traffic Volume 1976-1996

Key	% length increase % traffic increase length added
Motorways	50% 128% 1071km
A Roads	4% 66% 1643km
Non-trunk roads	12% 41% 32682km

Data source: Warren Springs Laboratory

New motorways needed

Here are our proposals for new motorway routes:
Click the map on the right for a larger map showing new routes in red. All routes are approximate.
 

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