A27 Arundel 2019 Further Consultation Corrections

Overview

Investing in your roads

The A27 Arundel Bypass scheme is identified within the Government’s 2015-2020 Road Investment Strategy (RIS1), which states that England’s Strategic Road Network requires upgrading and improving to ensure it can deliver the performance needed to support the nation in the 21st century.

The A27 Arundel Bypass Further Options Public Consultation ended in October 2019, however, during the consultation period there were a number of updates made that can be found in the Background section of this site or on our Further Options Public Consultation page located under Investing in your roads and Update: Corrections sections.

After a further review period, we’ve now prepared some more documents that set out all the errors we have identified, and how they impact on what we previously said. These documents can be found below and have also been left at deposit points in and around Arundel (locations are detailed below). 

We want to bring this new information to the attention of those people who took part in the Further Options Public Consultation.  If you did not respond to the further consultation last year, this does not apply to you. However, if you did respond please continue to read the below information.

What documents are affected?

We have identified errors that need to be corrected and as of 3 February 2020 we are publishing an errata for the following documents:

• Public Consultation Brochure
• Environmental Assessment Report (EAR)
• South Downs National Park Special Qualities Assessment (Appendix 1-1 of the EAR)
• Interim Scheme Assessment Report (SAR) including SAR Appendix F - Appraisal Summary Tables (ASTs)
• Worthing and Lancing Sensitivity Technical Note
• Combined Modelling and Appraisal (ComMA) Report
• Local Roads Study 
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Appendice
• Biodiversity Technical Appendices

To rectify this, we are publishing corrections to the Further Options Public Consultation materials, alongside an explanation as to their effect and invite anyone who earlier responded to our proposals to consider these corrections.

These errata documents, as well as the Consultation Brochure and all other supporting technical documents previously published for the 2019 consultation, can be found on this page and at the deposit locations listed below.

Background

On 13 September 2019, we made a small number of corrections to the consultation brochure. These corrections related to data entry issues when the consultation brochure was produced from the underlying project documents. The corrections did not affect or change the assessments undertaken and reported in the consultation documents, but simply related to the drafting of the consultation brochure. For more detail, please see the 'Update' section on our Further Options Public Consultation page.

In addition, on 16 September 2019 we published an errata for the Environmental Assessment Report (EAR) and the  Interim Scheme Assessment Report (SAR). These errata documents can be found by  visiting our Further Options Public Consultation page. The corrections in the underlying technical documents did not affect or change the assessments undertaken and reported in the consultation documents.  For more detail, please see the 'Update' section on our Further Options Public Consultation page.

UPDATE: 2020 Corrections

Following our Further Options Public Consultation and earlier updates, we are now presenting a new update that refers to our earlier public consultation that took place between 30 August and 24 October 2019.

Whilst we are currently considering all comments received during the Further Options Public Consultation to help inform the development of the scheme, as part of our work to collate and review the responses to the consultation, we have undertaken further reviews of the published documents and identified some errors around the way certain pieces of information were presented.

Please review the following information and errata documents below. If you decide that the type of errors highlighted do make a difference to the way you responded, we’d recommend that you review the more detailed information we’ve provided on this page or at the deposit points which can be found below and complete our short questionnaire.

Note that there are no changes to the designs of the six proposed scheme options and no additional baseline data, including surveys, have been added. The new text only provides corrections to the existing information. Fundamentally, the overall conclusions of the assessment of the various options presented in the consultation materials haven’t changed but we wanted to bring this new information to the attention of those people who took part.  

In many cases, the errors are minor technical corrections (for example, typographical or transcription errors in documents caused by human error) but in some instances, we incorrectly stated the likely effect that an individual aspect (such as noise) would have on a particular scheme option – either positively or negatively changing the impact.

A summary below provides errors identified in the further consultation materials, please take the time to review this information. If you decide that the type of errors highlighted may have made a difference to the way you responded to our Further Options Public Consultation, we’d recommend that you review the more detailed information we’ve provided, either here or at one of our deposit points where you will find and can view our updates and the consultation materials.

The corrections do not affect the overall nature of our assessments of the various options and for many of the people who responded to the consultation, it’s unlikely that the updated information will have a bearing on their original views of the options however, if your opinions have changed when you read the corrections, then we want to ensure you can comment further on the latest information.

Please note: If you’re not concerned about the corrected information and are content it does not impact on your previous response, you don’t need to do anything. You only need to respond to us again now if your views on the proposed options have changed as a result of the corrected information. We will continue to consider all responses we received during the 2019 further consultation. Please note that responses received after 1 March 2020 may not be considered.

What topics are affected?

Most of the changes we have identified affect the environmental topics contained within the cultural heritage, landscape and visual, biodiversity, and noise and vibration chapters. A few changes affect the population and health chapter, as well as the road drainage and the water environment and climate change (greenhouse gases and vulnerability) chapters. No updates were required for the air quality, materials, geology and soils or major accidents and disasters environmental topics. 

In many instances, the corrections are replicated in the other documents (e.g. the Public Consultation Brochure and the Interim SAR) and the summaries that draw information from the EAR chapters. In addition, a few minor changes affect the Local Roads Study and ComMA.

What are the changes?

Because Highways England is committed to full and open consultation, and because we want people responding to the consultation to have all the facts available, we thought it important to share these changes. 

The majority of changes are relatively minor technical corrections.  Such as correcting the number of properties that would experience a moderate or greater noise level increase during the operational phase from 379 to 326 for Crimson (Option 3V1). 

There are however, some corrections to the level of significance of effect reported on a particular topic. In general, these relate to a specific element of an environmental topic, for a specific scheme option. Such as existing dwellings at Fitzalan Road would also experience significant adverse noise effects during Operation for Magenta (Option 4/5AV1).

To ease the understanding of the cultural heritage chapter and some of the biodiversity appendices, due to multiple re-occurring corrections, we have re-issued these documents in their entirety. The overall conclusions of the environmental assessment haven’t changed.

It may be helpful to read the errata documents in combination with the previous consultation materials, which can be found here.

How to let us know if your opinion has changed?

If, having reviewed the corrected information you want to let us know your changed opinion please use our online feedback form. You’ll have four weeks from Monday 3 February until 11:59pm on Sunday 1 March 2020 to provide your update. Please note that responses received after this time may not be considered.

If you have any questions about any of the documents published correcting the errors, then:

• Call us during normal working hours on 0300 123 5000 asking for the Arundel Bypass project team. Calls will be charged at local rate; 
• Email us at A27ArundelBypass@highwaysengland.co.uk; 
• Write to us at A27 Arundel Project Team, Bridge House, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4LZ.

Deposit points

We’ve prepared some documents that set out the errors, and how they impact on what we previously said. These documents have been left at deposit points in and around Arundel (locations are detailed below) and they’ve also been uploaded to this webpage.

You can find copies of the Consultation Brochure, other supporting technical documents and the errata documents at the following deposit points throughout the review period (3 February to 1 March 2020), during the locations’ normal opening hours. 

What happens next?

All responses and comments received between 3 February and 1 March 2020 will be considered and summarised in our Public Consultation Report, which will be published on our scheme website. We will carefully consider the responses alongside several factors to determine our preferred route for the scheme.

Another opportunity to have your say

Once we have published our Public Consultation Report and following a Preferred Route Announcement, we will develop detailed proposals. This will include further surveys and investigations to allow us to design the scheme in more detail. There will be a further opportunity to have your say on the design of this preferred route during further public consultation prior to any application for consent.

If you would like to register for updates on this scheme you can subscribe here.

What happens next