Ulster Unionist Infrastructure Spokesperson John Stewart MLA has responded to today’s Court of Appeal judgment on the A5 Western Transport Corridor, which clears the way for the scheme to proceed.

John Stewart said:

“This judgment finally brings some clarity to a project that has been mired in legal argument for the best part of two decades.

“Nobody should mistake today for a success story. Years were lost to a process that should never have been allowed to fail in the first place. The Public Accounts Committee warned the Department not to announce a decision until carbon budgets and a Climate Action Plan were in place. Two Sinn Féin Infrastructure Ministers pressed ahead regardless, and the High Court found that DAERA had given the Department no evidence-based assurance that the scheme could be reconciled with the law.

“The delay was not caused by the courts. It was caused by departments that did not do the work required of them, and the cost of that failure has fallen on everybody else.

“What the Minister must now set out is a realistic timetable, an honest figure for what this project will cost after years of inflation, and how it will be funded alongside everything else her Department is responsible for. She must also demonstrate that every pound of public money will be spent efficiently and effectively, with robust oversight to ensure there is no further waste.

“Farmers and landowners affected by the scheme must also be treated as a priority. They have lived with uncertainty for far too long, and my colleague Diana Armstrong has been pursuing the compensation and valuation questions on their behalf since the day she entered the Assembly.

“The lesson of the last two years is that announcements are not delivery. This Department has become very good at the first and much less good at the second.”