The road through Rimrose Valley - final meeting tomorrow at the Park Hotel

Rimrose Valley meeting tomorrow - Please read this letter from Rosalind Smyth and attend the one remaining public Information event - Park Hotel Thursday 24 Oct 2pm to 8pm. Please go along if you possibly can and have your say.

Dear Sefton Bubble:

As you may be aware Highways England have been tasked with building a road for the Port of Liverpool access scheme. They want to put it through Rimrose Valley - likely Play Football will be taken and likely to come out Edge Lane so this will affect us all in South Sefton.

I explained to HE about Sundial Place on Runnells/Lydiate lane flooding after only minimal disturbance and pointed out to them that Rimrose Valley is higher up than this area and carries very many natural springs which will be disturbed if the road is built. There is also a very large sewer pipe built in the 1940's currently draining the water into Gladstone dock and which is where they want to build the road. Given that Rimrose Valley is higher than Thornton and water flows down I think this definitely concerns Thornton area.

There is also the matter of the access/exit and the additional traffic and pollution affecting all of Soth Sefton -Brooms Cross has done nothing to alleviate traffic through Crosby /Thornton and a road through the Valley will cut off communities. HE are unaware of the Sundial Place development standing water issues -they have not thought how the road will attach to Edge Lane /Brooms Cross -possibly a fly over they said yesterday.They appreciated that Buckley Hill fire station and Shy Lowen are in the middle of it and claim they would consult them.They know there is an issue with the water table and they will need to address this issue like they did at Brooms Cross -see the 2 large retaining lakes in existence already!

At present I am just busy trying to drum up support from all areas of South Sefton re 'the road' It's really astonishing what is going on under our noses - council are doing little if anything it seems. They have refused to enter into a discussion with HE after they - the council - lost the judicial review. HE were also advised RV is a landfill site - 3 tips rolled into one - asbestos ,methane etc - poor record keeping from Victorian times to as late at early 70s means it is unstable to say the least and it is likely there are also unexploded bombs there.

After the public meeting I attended on Tuesday it now seems the entrance off the A5036 is now likely to go in off the roundabout at Beach Road - it makes sense now why,when it was re surfaced some years ago, it was dug down and re inforced - exit is likely to be Play Football /Edge Lane.

A no road alternative is needed. Rail and tunnel options need to be fully explored and costed and not just dismissed as too costly and/or unworkable. More money from Government /Peel ports needs to be put into the scheme to support the poor relations here in South Sefton -and area already over polluted and with an exceptionally high volume of traffic which will only get worse when the port is fully up and running.

I am hoping that readers of this page who live in South Sefton will attend the one remaining public Information event -Park Hotel Thursday 24 Oct 2pm to 8pm. Please go along if you possibly can and have your say. Highways England are there in blue tee shirts as are the engineers -Keir group -commissioned by HE to build the road- also confusingly in the same uniform.Carl Stockton is the head HE guy you need to speak to.

Thanks for reading

Rosalind Smyth