Hello @BBOWT, I have some questions to ask about your extraordinary shocking support for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, one of the biggest and most damaging infrastructure schemes proposed in the UK. I'm asking them publicly, as lots of people want answers. Thread/

The Arc is a top-down, undemocratic project, driving a coach and horses through the Aarhus Convention. We have every chance of stopping it. Instead, you've thrown it a lifeline, by suggesting, astonishingly, that it “can restore nature, rather than destroy it.” Why? And why now?

What about water supplies, that your "blueprint" doesn’t even mention? They're already overexploited across the whole Arc. How many more rivers are you prepared to see run dry?

What about traffic levels, that are already unsustainable throughout this region, and will be made much worse, regardless of which road options might be chosen? Again, no mention in the blueprint.

What about the fact that the housing numbers it envisages bear no relationship to need, but are instead driven by the government's demand for economic growth? As economic growth is the main cause of environmental destruction, why aren’t you opposing it, full stop?

Has BBOWT made a planetary boundaries assessment of this project and your involvement, or are you, as your blueprint suggests, using a narrow conception of ecosystem and habitat issues?

Why is there no mention in the blueprint of continued opposition to the Expressway, or to the developers' housing target?

Have you considered the possibility that the "pause" to the Ox-Cam Expressway that Highways England has announced is purely strategic, as similar "pauses" were during the 1990s road building programme, and that you have fallen for it hook, line and sinker?

Have you considered the possibility that the "other potential road projects" in the Arc that Highways England mentions could be just as damaging? Or could even amount (again a la 1990s) to building the Expressway incrementally?

What conditions did BBOWT attach to its involvement? Will it make the MoU you struck with the developers public? (Please tell me there is one).

Which local campaigners did you consult about this shift from opposition to collaboration? Those I've spoken to knew nothing about it, and are shocked and disoriented. You seem to be undermining the dedicated campaigns of people across the region. Why?

I think you have a duty to explain to us all why you appear to have switched from campaigning to greenwashing, and why you are now repeating, in your public materials, the misleading claims of the developers. I look forward to your answers. Thank you.