Environmental group nearly at funding goal to launch DfT road investment legal challenge

Environmental campaigners have almost reached a crowdfunding goal to take the Department for Transport (DfT) to court to block its second road investment strategy (RIS 2).

The campaign to “stop the largest ever road-building programme” was launched by the Transport Action Group on April 21 and at the time of posting this article, it has already raised over £24,000 of its £38,000 target with 24 days left to run.

RIS2 was published on March 11 alongside the Budget and involves spending £27.4 billion by 2025 on new roads.

The funds for the crowdfunding campaign will be used to take the DfT to the High Court and launch a judicial review of the DfT’s RIS2 plans. 

A statement from the Transport Action Group said: “We urgently need to reduce emissions year-on-year if we are to keep the earth’s temperature within safe limits of 1.5C.

“By building more roads and creating more traffic, RIS2 would take us in the wrong direction and lock us into an unsustainable future.

“Scaling back RIS2 to focus on maintenance would allow money to be diverted into public transport, rail freight, cycling and walking. We would have cleaner air and less risk of runaway climate change. With more funding local councils could finally tackle potholes on their existing roads. Please help us take the Government to court to enable this better future.”

The same legal team that represented the challenge to Heathrow’s expansion and won has agreed to represent the environmental group should it meet its fundraising target by the deadline.