What Wiltshire Council Told the Transport Minister in 2011

There have been several comments, here and on the STAG Facebook page, regarding traffic surveys, their findings and what various stakeholders understood.  Several folks are still under the mistaken impression that closure of the A344 wasn't expected to cause traffic chaos. We thought it might be helpful to let everyone see the key reports and documents that should have been taken notice of at the time they were produced, and subsequently, and which have been ignored, or reneged upon.

So here is our first document of 2014.   What Wiltshire Council then told Tom Harris, the the Minister for Transport.

The whole letter is very useful as it lays out the policy of Wiltshire Council in 2011.   The focus is on the improvement of the A303.  The bottom line is shown in the text surrounded by the first red box.  In 2011, Wiltshire Council did not support the closure of the A344 without an improvement to the A303, precisely because of the impact they expected such a move to have on local communities.

It is of considerable concern to us that Wiltshire Council was not being kept informed of the latest traffic surveys being undertaken by the Highways Agency.  Despite this, and with the foreknowledge of the results of earlier traffic studies, Wiltshire Council reinforced their concerns about the consequences of closure of the A344 in isolation.

Then something happened.

Wiltshire Council changed its policy and, seemingly, allowed the A344 closure to go ahead last year without so much as a whimper.  We've been trying to understand why.  Who made the decision to change the policy so strongly expressed in 2011 and who supported that change.  We are also interested in knowing if any of those involved in the about face had, or have, any connections to those stakeholders who have benefited directly, or indirectly, from the A344 closure.

We've asked Wiltshire Council to explain when this policy changed in several ways, but they are proving hard to pin down.   We even invited Cllr Fleur de Rhé-Phillipe, Wiltshire Council's Cabinet Member for Economy, Skills and Transport, to provide an explanation - first in October 2013 by email and then again in early December.  in her first and only response, the good councillor clearly missed this question, so we restated it in a follow-up email. We didn't even get the courtesy of a reply.

Given that we (WiSBAng, STAG and others) are going to be engaging with other stakeholders during the forthcoming A303 feasibility study, we are going to want to know what Wiltshire Council's A303 policy is, and whose word is to be believed.

We also need to understand whether the elected officials of Wiltshire Council and its employees speak with one voice.  Why?  Well this document from 2005 is pretty self-explanatory (click on document to expand it):

We are particularly taken by the author's apparent relish at dividing [local] opposition - turning Larkhill and Shrewton against Winterbourne Stoke for instance.  That's something we are going to be very aware of this time round and why it is encouraging to see the local villages rallying round and pulling together.   It's worth reflecting that some of the officials associated with this document are likely to be involved in 2014-15.  We will be watching them closely.

The problems associated with the A303, the A344 closure and the consequent rat-running are already going on in our back yards.  There can be no room for NIMBY-ism here, we are already IMBYs!