As we've been busy communicating via our social media channels, after 7 long years, our campaign is at a pivotal moment.
Following the Chancellor's claim that there is a £22bn black hole in the public finances, Rachel Reeves instructed government departments to make savings.
This included Louise Haigh's Department for Transport (DfT), which subsequently initiated a review of transport infrastructure projects, explained here.
The DfT's new motto is to "move fast and fix things" and it would appear that they're moving very fast indeed.
Whatever conclusions this review has reached will feed into spending decisions in the autumn budget, which is set to be announced on Wednesday 30th October.
Put it in your diary.
This is exactly why we called on you to write to the Transport Secretary herself, our Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram... and both constituency MPs Peter Dowd and Bill Esterson.
We needed them to highlight the level of opposition to this road proposal.
On the back of this, we have also shared that Transport Action Network (TAN) commissioned its own report, the aptly titled "Cancel New Roads to Boost Growth" which you can read in full here.
It debunks the myth that new roads grow the economy and calls for 16 road projects to be cancelled, including the A5036 Port of Liverpool Access Scheme.
TAN has been busy flagging this to as many movers and shakers in government and the transport sector as possible, with the goal of influencing the outcome of the above review.
So, the big question is: where does this leave us?
Well, based on everything we know, we wanted to share what COULD happen next.
There are a few scenarios:
Announcements of decisions taken on specific schemes - cancelled, paused, or approved - COULD be 'teased' through the media in the lead up to October 30th. (This happened with the A303 Stonehenge Tunnel and A27 Arundel bypass - 2 Tory road schemes cancelled as part of the Chancellor's 'black hole' speech)
Announcements COULD be made in the budget speech itself
Announcements COULD be made post-budget by the DfT and/or Treasury
Either way, at some point, we SHOULD know where we stand either in the short-term (cancelled) medium-term (paused) or long-term (approved).
Of course, the outcome of the above will have a huge bearing on what direction we take as a campaign.
Whatever the decision, we'll continue to take advice and react accordingly.
For absolute clarity, should the worst happen, we will continue to fight this road proposal for all the reasons we have done so for the past 7 years.
But let's not think about that.
We want everyone to be as positive as possible, to remember everything we've achieved together since we started our campaign, and let's see what happens at the end of the month.
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