Environmental groups associated with the Essex Alliance for Sustainable Transport are claiming a significant victory after many Rettendon residents attended a meeting opposing the scale of the proposed new A130 road.

About 80 people -- more than half of them said to be residents -- objected to between £10 million and £12 million a year being spent on the road in capital and interest charges over the next 30 years.

One of EAST's constituent groups, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Essex, said that the meeting in a marquee at the Wheatsheaf pub, near the existing highway, decided that neither the Government nor Essex County Council was doing enough to reduce traffic or speed.

CPRE said: "The outcome can only be changed by the ECC reviewing its decision to build a new motorway and proposing instead bypasses for the communities affected.

"To do this, it will be necessary for the general public to make their views known by writing to the ECC."

Jimmy Johns, for the Gorse Wood protest camp set up at Rettendon to oppose any construction work, said after the meeting: "Take a look at the bigger picture, such as planned road schemes in the north of the county. It becomes apparent that this road forms part of a new outer M25 orbital road.

"Why should the people of Essex be lumbered with the nation's transport crisis?"

He said that people at the meeting lived along the existing A130, in places such as Rettendon, Rawreth and Shotgate.

A working group has been set up to plan the campaign against the £92 million new road.

Friends of the Earth Essex spokeswoman Paula Whitney said: "I thought we were in the lions' den, but no one from the locality was in support of the new road.

"We are pressing for better north-south rail links. In the past, trains from Southend have been able to go on to Chelmsford and Colchester by the driver changing ends at Shenfield, and taking the train on to the Chelmsford line."

Rettendon Chelmsford borough councillor John Little said that he and most local people could not wait for the new road, and resented suggestions of further delays.

"I have great feeling for the village and I want to see the deaths and injuries on the existing main road to come to an end as quickly as possible," he said.

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