Said Councillor Rupert Read, Norwich Green Party transport spokesperson, "I have made absolutely clear at the Joint Highways Committee that this consultation, to be viable, must give citizens a serious option of choosing not to build the NDR at all, and to opt for alternatives. The County has ignored my advice: we in the Greens therefore have no alternative but to urge people to boycott this dangerously-flawed consultation exercise.

"What we suggest is that people do return their consultation forms but refuse to answer any of the questions in the way that the Tory County Council has written those questions. On the last question, qu.9, which asks for any further comments on the route options, we suggest that people write that the route options are all dreadful, for one reason and another, and that they don't want an NDR at all."

Councillor Adrian Ramsay, Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Norwich South, added, "The Western routes planned for the NDR are all deeply-flawed. All the routes except for the two innermost routes are a complete nonsense, because they are too far out to actually do the supposed job of the NDR, the job of distributing traffic around Norwich. They are too far west, too expensive, and would carry too few vehicles to be worth building. Probably the only feasible routes are the two innermost routes. These are:

The 'orange' route, that skirts Costessey and Taverham. This route would be an utter environmental disaster. It would run through two ancient woodlands, at least two County Wildlife Sites, and would hurt the Wensum valley very badly. This route would never pass the test of a public inquiry.

The ironically-labeled 'green' route, which passes between Hellesdon and Drayton, would be the most effective in terms of carrying vehicles around Norwich - but that route too would devastate the Wensum valley, it is the route that worst affects nearby properties (over 1000 people live within 300m of the route!) and furthermore it would significantly increase traffic levels on roads in the Taverham and Drayton area which are already very busy.

"There is no satisfactory Western route. Therefore the NDR cannot be built. So the 'routes consultation' is pointless, and the citizens of the Norwich area should reject it as a pointless waste of money and time, a distraction from the real task: of starting to plan for and invest in forward-looking ways of improving our transport infrastructure in the Norwich area."

Councillor Adrian Holmes, Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Norwich North, said, "This consultation exercise is yet another example of the Tories wasting money on consulting over how to go about building a road that would be an environmental disaster if it was built - and which probably won't be built given that the Government is extremely unlikely to help fund it.