Overview

From the anti-roads protests of the 1990s to HS2 and Extinction Rebellion, the politics of transport have caused conflict and protest. This is the inside story spanning 30 years from 1989 when Margaret Thatcher's government announced 'the biggest road-building programme since the Romans.'Melia draws on over 40 interviews with government ministers, advisors and protestors. Some of them, including 'Swampy' are talking for the first time since those events. After years of protests, in the late 1990s UK governments slashed the road building budget and launched a new 'integrated' transport policy. In 2000 a small group of farmers and hauliers blockaded oil refineries, bringing the nation to a standstill, forcing the government to cut fuel taxes and change direction again. Today a new wave of road building and airport expansion is threatening to bust Britain's carbon budgets. Climate change protestors are on a collision course with the government.What difference did the protests of the past make, and what impacts will today's protest movements have on the transport of the future? Melia's conclusions explain transport conflict as part of a wider challenge for humanity: to accept the ultimate limits to growth, of all kinds.