The item is no longer on the agenda

We should tell you where things stand, because several of you have noticed before we said anything.

Since April the aerial alignment has been one of four options under review by the corridor working group. In that time we were asked twice to revise our costings and twice we did. As far as we knew the item was progressing normally.

It is not in this month’s papers. It has not been withdrawn, rejected, or found wanting in any document we have seen. It has simply stopped appearing.

We wrote on the eighteenth to ask what had changed. The reply, in full, was that the item is under further review. That is a real status and it may mean nothing at all. Items are held for scheduling reasons, for staff capacity, for the ordinary reason that four options is three more than anyone has time to cost properly.

We would ask supporters not to speculate, and particularly not to speculate at anyone by name. The people on the other end of this are running a program with a fraction of the staff it needs, and none of them owe us an answer on our timetable.

We have asked for the minutes of the meeting at which the change was made. We are told there was no such meeting.