A66 mess

The borough council, typically, seems anxious to deal with it before all the facts are known. If more information about the impact of additional traffic on the A66 persuades the Government's Highways Agency to direct the council to refuse permission, however, this would be like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Between the two of them, the Government Office for the North-East and Darlington Borough Council have already permitted the match-day traffic shambles on the A66 trunk road at the Reynolds Arena, and the Government's cautious intervention at this late stage is in marked contrast with its failure to act when the planning application for the football stadium was first submitted. At that time, anticipated crowds of up to 25,000 supporters first arriving and later departing all more or less at the same time did not seem to cause any stir in the Highways Agency regional office, normally, in times past, so strict about the impact of additional traffic on trunk roads.

The Government office did not call the application in, no direction to refuse was issued, and, despite many objections from local people on traffic grounds alone, there was no public inquiry before an independent inspector. This, naturally, prevented an embarrassing public cross-examination of expert witnesses from the Highways Agency, whose normal well-founded fears for road safety and the free flow of traffic were effectively silenced.

A little more than ten years ago, however, when Darlington Borough Council sought to re-locate the cattle market from Clifton Road to a site very close to what is now the Reynolds Arena, the same Government Office for the North-East stopped the council from proceeding. After the local inquiry, the inspector ruled that agricultural-type buildings in that location would be an undesirable intrusion into the countryside, and the Highways Agency was unhappy about the traffic generated by a twice-weekly farmers' auction mart. Permission was refused.

Ten years ago, of course, the sites of the proposed cattle market and what is now the Reynolds Arena did not lie either side of the common parliamentary constituency boundary of the Prime Minister and the former Secretary of State for Health, only of two ordinary members of parliament. And, as the council itself recently pointed out, it was then a completely different council, with different executives and officers.

While the borough council is, doubtless, now considering the financial impact on the football club of not granting planning permission for car boot sales (something which it calls "support" for the club), will the Highways Agency feel the political pressure to stand aside yet again? There used to be statutory safeguards to prevent local councillors giving too much weight to financial matters when granting planning permission for development on council-owned land. Such decisions were taken out of their hands by mandatory not discretionary powers. How times have changed.

It is surely time for parliament to restore the essential checks and balances in the planning system which prevented greed and incompetence over-ruling sound planning practice. Unfortunately for Darlington, such action would be too late to undo the mess now developing on the A66 at Neasham Road.

H R C OWEN

Middleton Lane,

Middleton St George.