Allister sets out position on A5

18 October 2010

In a Letter to the editor in last week's Farming Life Jim Allister replied to an earlier correspondent and set out his clear position on the A5 project:

Letters to the Editor,

Farming Life

Dear Madam,

In replying to Derick Donnell’s letter of last week let me make it clear, lest anyone is in any doubt, that I am opposed not just to the ‘Alternative Route’, but also the ‘Preferred Route’, because I believe there is no justification or need for this A5 project, at all.

This first and foremost is a political project, not a roads project. It is driven not by Northern Ireland’s infrastructural needs but by cross-border politics to provide better access, at huge cost to affected farmers, from Dublin to Donegal. Hence, the fervour with which it is being driven forward by the DRD Sinn Fein Minister, while roads with far higher traffic use are denied upgrading to dual carriageway (eg A26 east of Coleraine). The Stormont Executive’s foolish and full support for the project, and diversion of scarce resources from far more deserving causes, means all political parties involved therein are complicit in driving through this foolhardy scheme, with no thought to the agricultural devastation being wrought throughout Tyrone.

The thrust of my earlier intervention was to point out that in circumstances where we were told that the ‘Preferred Route’ was the product of thorough surveying and that in consequence it would only be ‘tweaked’, how could it now be so radically altered, as at Ballymagorry or Ballygawley, without making a nonsense of the preferred route process which the Minister talked up so robustly?  Hence, my assertion that farmers originally excluded, but now included, were being treated in a high handed fashion.

I am not in the least defending the preferred route – as I’ve made clear I don’t think any such route is necessary to provide the improvements which the A5 might require. So, I am not defending in any shape or form the preferred route and its devastation, nor the high handed treatment of farmers within the preferred route, but pointing out that the arbitrary changes add a fresh dimension of grievance and inequity.

Having already met several people affected by the ill-conceived A5 proposal, I am more than happy to meet Mr Donnell or anyone else who believes that would be useful.

Yours faithfully,

Jim Allister QC

TUV Leader

Agriculture and Environment