Councillor Susanna Pressel wrote to the Oxford Times this week to argue that the proposed channel would not be as destructive and expensive as Riki Therivel said it would be.
However, the Environment Agency’s own reports (available on the Oxfordshire County Council planning website) state that:
- 2,000 trees would be destroyed
- there would be a net biodiversity loss onsite
- Hinksey Meadow is ‘irreplaceable’
- removing the spoil due to the channel would require at best a 40mph speed limit to be put on the A34 for the duration of construction (3-5 years)
- The net benefits of a flood channel really would be at most 0.8% of the entire scheme. The cost of the proposed scheme would be £144.6M, and its benefits would be £1536.5M. The cost of a ‘no channel’ scheme would be £120.7M, and its benefits would be £1501.2M. The net benefit (benefit - cost) of a ‘no channel’ scheme would be £1380.5M, so 99.2% of the net benefits of the proposed scheme at £1391.8M.
Since the EA report comparing the proposed scheme with a ‘no channel’ scheme was written, the costs of the proposed scheme have increased to more than £170M. The report also assumes that the ‘no channel’ scheme would include four new bridges that would be unnecessary without a channel. The figures for the channel really do not make sense.