The Highways Agency has already spent £13.7M on preparing the Mottram to Tintwistle bypass scheme, despite recently adjourning the public inquiry into the project for the fourth time. Opposition groups are intensifying calls to abandon the 3.5-mile A57/A628 bypass, which is aimed at reducing congestion on local roads on the edge of Tameside. The agency said £13.78M had so far been spent on design costs, publication of draft orders, preparation and publication of the environmental statement, traffic modelling and the public inquiry. Yet the public inquiry was adjourned before Christmas to revise the traffic modelling and environmental statement, ‘using the updated DMRB volume 11, which was issued since the original statement was published’. A spokesperson said the agency would be able to give a firm date in February, indicating when the work would be completed. But campaigners have slammed the agency for its ‘shambolic’ handling of the scheme. Rebecca Lush Blum, roads and climate campaigner for the Campaign for Better Transport, said the best scenario for everyone concerned was to abandon the public inquiry and implement low-cost safety measures. She said the A628 was one of the worst-performing roads under the EuroRAP star rating system (Surveyor, 6 December 2007), but the agency refused to implement safety measures before construction of the bypass in 2013. ‘It’s been a complete farce,’ added Anne Robinson, of Friends of the Peak District. ‘About £4M has been spent on the public inquiry, but it has all gone to waste.’ She said the money spent so far could have paid for feasible alternatives, including increasing public transport, improving walking and cycling facilities, and diverting HGVs from the current route on to the motorway network and implementing the necessary safety measures. She said the motorway network was already heavily congested, but more rail freight would solve the problem in the form of the Woodhead rail route.