Byway 12 - Can Ed Vaizey and English Heritage Be Trusted?

On Wednesday last week Culture Minister Ed Vaizey visited the Stonehenge World Heritage Site to learn more about its traffic problems.  According to the Salisbury Journal, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the closure of Byway 12, or at least the section of it between the A303 and the old A344.

This gives us here at WiSBAng a bit of a headache, as since the closure of the A344, it seems more people have been taking vehicles onto Byway 12 and  parking up for a picnic and a quick gawk at Stonehenge.  All perfectly above board and legal and, indeed, stopping on a byway for an hour or so for a picnic is a nice thing to do.  Although we can't prove Byway 12 existed before Stonehenge, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise the some tracks in and around the site of Stonehenge had to pre-date the stones and Byway 12 would be a pretty good contender.  Consequently, tracks like Byway 12 are part and parcel of the World Heritage Site landscape and deserve the same level of permanent protection as any other part of that site.  Moreover, they are the only feature of that landscape that can be used for their original purpose - transport!

The problem has been that to pull off the A303 onto Byway 12, the traffic has to slow down and that causes a soliton to develop in addition to a second one a few hundred yards east adjacent to the henge and a third soliton just east of Stonehenge Bottom.  All of these solitons, contribute to the traffic jams that develop on the A303 near Stonehenge; even in the absence of large volumes of traffic.  So, on the one hand, it would make sense to stop traffic turning off the A303 as it would remove one of the three solitons.

What has happened so far has been ill-conceived, disingenuous, and not particularly successful - trying to stop right turns into and out of Byway 12 - using the specious argument of safety.  Just how specious the argument is can be demonstrated by a moments thought - how many other right turns are there - roads, tracks, field gates, byways, driveways and roads between Stonehenge Bottom and the start of the next section of dual carriageway west of Winterbourne Stoke? 

The answer, if you care to count, might well surprise you.  There are dozens and many have narrower entries and exits than Byway 12, with greater levels of vehicular usage.  No one is suggesting closing these.

If logic doesn't appeal to you, then look at the Wiltshire Police accident figures for the A303 over the last 5 years.

Yes, that's right, although there have been two accidents close to Byway 12, that was no worse than at the old A344/A303 junction at Stonehenge Bottom.  You would be better able to justify banning right turns onto and off the B3083, or even the A360 on safety grounds, than you can for Byway 12 as the accident rates adjacent to both these roads are significantly worse than at Byway 12.

So the argument that has been used to justify banning right turns, by the Highways Agency and Wiltshire Council just doesn't hold water and, rightly, reflects badly on the competence of both organisations and anyone else who supported these measures for the reasons stated.  Just because it might have achieved the desired effect doesn't make it good use of the law.

That said, temporary closure of Byway 12 to vehicular traffic, for an honest reason - that it slows the traffic and causes jams - might be justifiable.  But, there is a problems, a historic problem, a big problems.  English Heritage.

English Heritage have lobbied hard in the past for the complete and permanent closure of Byway 12, and, whatever their stated reasons for doing so it is clear that it would give them pretty close to total control of access to the World Heritage site, by vehicles, cycles, horse riders and pedestrians.  We think it is pretty safe to say that they are unlikely to have changed their views.  So any request by English Heritage for closure of Byway 12 by English Heritage should call in to question their true motivation.  It should be questioned even more closely given the restricted group who met with Ed Vaizey last week.

Back in November, when we met with other stakeholders to discuss measures to prevent traffic chaos on the A303 this summer, we raised our concerns about English Heritage's motives when the suggestion of closing the TRO was made.  We also gave English Heritage a means by which they could demonstrate the integrity of their position and honesty of their motives for seeking closure of Byway 12 for vehicular traffic.  We will repeat that here.

We at WiSBAng would reluctantly support the temporary closure of Byway 12 to vehicular traffic (not to cyclists, horse riders and pedestrians) until the A303 is improved; simply as an expedient means of improving traffic flow. We will do so ONLY if there is a legal undertaking, by Ed Vaizey, English Heritage and the WHS, to NOT pursue the permanent closure of Byway 12.  We would expect that vehicular traffic is again given access to Byway 12, once improvements are made to the A303, or immediately should a decision be taken to NOT improve the A303.

We would suggest that if the parties above are not prepared to give such an undertaking, then even temporary closure of the A303 WILL be actively resisted.

Does The CPRE Represent Countryfolk or Countryfauk?

Whilst corresponding with John Glen MP on the subject of the A303 traffic problems and the Campaign to Protect Rural England's stance on the need to improve the road, we were inspired to dream up a new word - Countryfauk.

Why?  Well, we were so surprised about the CRPRE's comments, we looked a little deeper into what they were doing, as you would expect that we should have a lot of common ground.   Superficially, that view is correct.  Living and working in the countryside we share many common interests with the CPRE in the countryside itself, farming and rural industry, housing and rural planning, energy and waste management.

However, when you scratch away the surface veneer, you find a huge difference.  There are those who realise that since man was a hunter-gatherer (and what better place to talk about such things as here, in the shadow of Stonehenge) the relationship of man with the countryside has been one of constant and massive change.  Change that was essential to the life and development not only of the local communities, but the whole country and our national and international interests.  Most folk who live and work in the countryside seem to understand that need for change intuitively and embrace it.   We call them countryfolk.

On the other hand, you have those who wish to preserve an unchanging and unchangeable version of an idealised view of what the English countryside should be - and impose that view on everyone else.  It seems that many in the CPRE might fall into that category; and particularly when it comes to roads.

Many supporters of this philosophy don't actually live in the countryside, you can't really class those who have second homes here, or who only visit once in a Preston Guild, as true countryfolk.  Wearing a flat cap, or green wellies, or driving a Land Rover round central London doesn't make you countryfolk either.  We get the feeling that too many of those pushing these ideas of chocolate box stasis and preservation might better be described as countryfauk; faux countryfolk who are apt to be the first to complain about mud/rain/grass/smells, etc in the countryside.  The ones who bemoan the lack of "culture".  The first to moan to parish councils about the noise of crowing cockerels, the first to start petitions to halt the chiming of rural clocks and those whose whines outdo the Sunday tintinnabulators - whose hobby they would stop. In other words, the archetypal rural NIMBYs.  

Must come as shock to countryfauk that many countryfolk actually embrace rural change.  Some of us are even IMBYs.

CPRE Ostrich Has Head Stuck in Sand for A Decade

There's an interesting, though somewhat depressing article in today's (April 24th 2014) Daily Telegraph entitled "Stonehenge tunnel plans could be revived".  The article is by the Telegraph's Transport Correspondent, Nick Collins and is in response to the Department for Transport's  A303/A30/A358 Corridor Feasibility Study Scope Document which you can find here.  I strongly suggest that you read it for yourselves as I fear Mr Collins has misrepresented some of it in his article.

What is more disturbing are the comments of the CPRE below:

"The Campaign to Protect Rural England said several of the spots under examination, including Stonehenge, are only congested at certain times of year and do not merit major development.
Ralph Smyth, senior transport campaigner for the CPRE, said: “The traffic [at Stonehenge] hasn’t increased in the last 10 years and it does not justify the huge cost of a tunnel.”
A long tunnel would at least be preferable to a dual carriageway at the surface, which could cause the historic site to lose its world heritage status, he added".  

I'm not sure where they have been for the last 10 years, but as anyone who lives alongside the A303, or drives along it regularly, to say that the traffic at Stonehenge hasn't increased over the last 10 years is risible.  It's worse than that, it's damned dangerous.  Opinion is one thing and evidence quite another.  I would strongly suggest that Ralph Smyth takes a bit of time to read traffic flow data and projections before he makes any further pronouncements.  In particular, he should take a look at Somerset County Council's excellent Economic Impact Study and the figures contained therein, not to mention the traffic studies conducted on behalf of Wiltshire Council and English Heritage.

If you want to take this up with the CPRE directly, then their contact details are:

National Office
Campaign to Protect Rural England
5-11 Lavington Street
London
SE1 0NZ

Tel: 020 7981 2800
Fax: 020 7981 2899

Email: info@cpre.org.uk

Death Wish 2014 - Traffic on the A303

Not only were cars slowing to take happy snaps near Stonehenge over the weekend, causing many of the tail-backs in both directions, some motorists were taking advantage of the wide verges, pedestrian pavements and lack of barriers to park-up at Stonehenge Bottom.

Whilst this driver photographed by Shrewton's Watch Bustard is breaking the law,

it seems that these dear folk below, photographed by Wiltshire Police over the weekend, aren't. Our grateful thanks to Inspector Christian Lange, Sector Commander for Amesbury and Tidworth, for permitting us to use this picture:

The fact that these car and van drivers aren't breaking the law is all down to the niceties of the Road Traffic Act it seems.  However, had a wheel or two remained on the white line demarking a clearway, that would have been a different story.

Apart from the fact that each of these drivers must have sloweed the traffic down when they pulled off the A303, over the kerb, to park and would do the same when starting off again, some of these half-wits (am I being overly generous here?) are clearly going to have to reverse back out into the traffic on a Bank Holiday.  A triumph of luck over judgement if you ask me.

There were also a slack handful of pedestrians wandering along the A303.  All perfectly legal of course, but perhaps not particularly well-advised.

Meanwhile, down in Winterbourne Stoke, to the horror of a local resident, the homebound public were also demonstrating their knowledge of the Highway Code.  Nothing like stopping on a crossing to queue for fuel, forcing other cars to either stay where they are, or overtake on a crossing in frustration.

As usual, we don't do too well getting registration plates.

But on this occasion we might have caught out the black Ford - WP13  UVN perhaps?

We'll have to see if we can get hold of some better cameras or use faster shutter speeds!

If you pass Stonehenge and notice anything dangerous or potentially dangerous going on - like the things shown in the shots above.  Pleas call the Police on 101 and let them know!

Stuck on the A303? - Win One of Two Bottles of Bubbly

 Win One of Two Bottles of Bubbly

It's been just over a year since adysayswakeupffs posted his marvellous video entitled "The A303 at 1000 mph" on You Tube.  We thought it was so brilliant that we ran a competition last year to see if anyone had experienced a worse journey, but by New Year's Day, no-one had - so our prizes went unclaimed.   We are so sure that someone is going to have a slower journey this summer that we are running the competition again, starting today, Easter Sunday.

The Rules

This year we have two bottles of bubbly on offer to the winner(s).   The rules are very simple.  All you have to do is either:

(a) Repeat the the journey along the whole 90 mile length of the A303 and record it on video.  
 or:
(b) Just record your journey between the Countess Roundabout in Amesbury and the A303 junction with the A36 at Deptford and record that on video.

Submit the video to YouTube and send us the link using the Contact Form at the foot of the page - or use the Contact Foem and we'll work out a way to get the video from you another way!

1.  The winning video will have the highest percentage of the overall journey time stuck in traffic between the Countess Roundabout at Amesbury and the A303 junction with the A36 at Wylye (Deptford).

2.  Journeys can be recorded West to East or East to West.

3.  We do not condone breaking any traffic laws in pursuit of the prize.

4.  Our decision as to the winner is final!

5.  The winner will be announced on 21st September (the Equinox) - or as soon afterwards as we can manage!

Extra Prizes!!!!!!!  f you know your attempt at glory has failed, but happen to record something of particular interest to our campaign, caused by the poor quality of the A303, then let us see it anyway, their may be additional spot prizes for interesting stuff.

If you want to get involved by sponsoring a competition, then we would love to hear from you!

No Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy...

...in this case, the "enemy" was the great British travelling public heading westbound for the West Country this Easter weekend.  Clearly, they weren't the type of enemy that Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (usually referred to as Moltke the Elder) had in mind when he first came out with the phrase: "No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength" (more usually shortened to : "no plan survives contact with the enemy,") Von Molke, generally regarded as the best military strategist of the late 19th century, the "inventor" of the terminology of red and blue forces in military wargaming,  was also a master logistician who understood the issues involved in moving large numbers of men and machines around - hence his relevance to the A303.

Back on the 24th of March, at a meeting sponsored by Inspector Christian Lange of Wiltshire Police, most of the interested parties got round a table to try and sort out a few expedient measures to ease the anticipated traffic hell over the Easter weekend.  Lots of ideas were put forward and people went off to beaver away to put things in place as quickly as possible.

Perhaps the organisation with the most to do was English Heritage. To their credit, having taken on board what was needed, Kate Davies, the General Manager at Stonehenge, got a lot done in a very short space of time.  Here is what the folks at Stonehenge had implemented in time for the anticipated rush the is weekend and a few of the the things they have planned for the the longer term.  The hope was that by improving the traffic situation on the A360 between the Stonehenge Visitors Centre entrance at Airman's Cross and the Longbarrow Roundabout on the A303, their would be less of an impact on both the local traffic on the A360 and the holidaymakers on the A303. In Kate Davies' own words, these are the measures they put in place and plan:

"Our overflow car par is now open and we have purchased tracking to cover main areas of wear in overflow car park (i.e. entrance and exit) to ensure use in all weathers. 
 
We have car park attendants directing all cars on arrival, ensuring every space is utilised.
 
A £5 car parking charge will be in operation to non-ticket holders to deter people using the car park as a service station during busy times.
 
A large scale marketing campaign commenced in March to promote ‘pre-book essential’ message.  
This marketing included national campaign and regional London and South-West campaign in a variety of different formats (film, poster, digital etc).  Digital adverts include placements on AA Routeplanner (these are activated when any journey passes the Stonehenge area).
 
We also have a social media campaign to push pre-booking.  As more people become aware of our timed-ticketing system, we’ll have less visitor bottlenecks.  We have seen a month-on-month increase in the number of people booking in advance. 
       
We have contact numbers for AA Road-watch, National and local radio traffic bulletins, FRIXO etc. ready to send out messages when we are approaching capacity.

We have also commissioned a feasibility study for variable message sign on the A303 via Highways Agency.  Whilst we await this we have temporary AA yellow signs to alert people if the car park is full to place near to the visitor centre".

That takes us back to Moltke the Elder.  Despite every traffic expert predicting that the volume of traffic on the A303 would be horrendous and there would be huge traffic jams, the volume of traffic has been much, much less than expected.  The "enemy", the travelling public has done the unexpected.  They didn't all head westwards on Thursday, nor on Friday.  Here in Winterbourne Stoke, there were never more than 25-30 vehicles per minute and the traffic was really only stationary when someone used the pedestrian crossing.  Here's a still from a video taken on Good Friday at a time we would normally expect stationary traffic nose-to-tail through the village.

Of course, those of you who were using the A303 on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday probably got stuck for long periods on the approach to Countess Roundabout in Amesbury and onwards, past Stonehenge, until you got tp the Longbarrow Roundabout.  Here's a shot taken by the Highways Agency traffic camera at Solstice Park in Amesbury, a few minutes before the video above was shot:

 Clearly, standing traffic down to the Countess Roundabout.  Whatever is causing THIS jam has nothing to do with the volume of traffic, as this Easter weekend has been significantly quieter than your average Thursday of Friday. 

It has everything to do with the behaviour of some motorists as they pass Stonehenge.  In our previous post, we proposed an explanation for what is going on, how it affects the traffic and how it might be prevented. 

However, it is achieved, the traffic past Stonehenge has to be prevented from stopping to get a better view of the stones, to take a snap...

or even, as in the case of one of Norbert Dentressangle's finest, slowing to a stop to pull off the A303 at Stonehenge Bottom to have a nap (there are proper lay-bys only a km or so east or west of this point)!

So, the grand plans to cope with large volumes of traffic didn't survive contact with the "enemy", because by and large, the "enemy" chose not to come to Wiltshire this Easter.  However, what we have learned this weekend is that none of the measures that have been instituted, so far, survived contact with even the few westbound 'enemy" that did put in an appearance.  That isn't good news and doesn't bode well for high summer.

 Perhaps simply blocking the view of Stonehenge from the A303 - however incomplete and imperfect that would have to be, as a short-term, temporary, and expedient measure - might be the only realistic option.

The Stonehenge Effect - Why Not All Traffic Jams Are Equal - A Soliton For the Masses

This weekend was set to be the first sunny weekend of 2014 - and only a week away from Easter.  We were expecting problems with the volume of traffic and jams westbound on Friday and Saturday morning and we anticipate more heading eastbound this evening.  However, the jams have been a little odd, to say the least.  On Friday afternoon,  we had the anticipated westbound tailbacks at the Countess roundabout in Amesbury, but traffic through Winterbourne Stoke was steady and not excessively heavy.  Strangely, the Highways Agency camera that is located near to the Solstice Park in Amesbury was out of action.  Strange that; it seems to happen an awful lot when the A303 is busy.  "Conspiracy " you cry!  Well, you might be right, the Highways Agency can't always be allowed to get away with the excuse of coincidental equipment failure or incompetence.  Perhaps they really are switching off cameras that might cause them embarrassment?

Expecting heavy westbound traffic, SWMBO left Winterbourne Stoke at 4:00pm on Friday - often a peak jam time - and drove to Barnstaple in North Devon.  She later reported that the drive was easy and traffic was very light.  Odd, given the massive tailbacks east of here

Eastbound traffic wasn't playing ball either.  From late morning to late afternoon, the eastbound traffic was virtually at a standstill; tailing back as far as the A36 interchange at Deptford.

Eastbound traffic at Winterbourne Stoke

Spire FM, our local radio station was expressing a degree of surprise as no-one appeared to know what was causing the jam.  Curiouser and curiouser.

On Saturday morning, we held a STAG meeting to discuss activities in the run-up to Easter; a period we expect to be hellish as it is going to be the first potentially warm and sunny Bank Holiday since the new Stonehenge Visitor's Centre opened and the half-baked changes to the Longbarrow Roundabout completed.  We agreed to take a look at the A303 at Stonehenge Bottom and in Winterbourne Stoke and leaflet the standing traffic if the opportunity arose.

When we got back to Winterbourne Stoke from Shrewton, we were staggered to see that there was so little traffic to be seen on the A303.  We really though there had been an accident and we checked all our usual sources of information.  No, nothing.  Puzzled, we fired a text message to Stagman and Watch Bustard to tell them that traffic was light.

Saturday Afternoon in Winterbourne Stoke - Where's the traffic?

Seconds later, we got a somewhat incredulous reply from Stagman who was by the side of the westbound A303 opposite Stonhenge Cottages - just to the east of Stonehenge Bottom.   Stagman pointed out that he was, as we exchanged text messages, wandering between two lanes of standing traffic distributing STAG leaflets.   Good to see that he was purposeful in this activity as otherwise he might have been accused of ganderflanking - we can't be having any of that can we?

Compare what was going on at Winterbourne Stoke above to the situation at Stonehenge Bottom at exactly the same time:

Westbound A303 - Stonehenge Hoves Into View

 The view back towards Amesbury looked like this:

Westbound Traffic and the Stagmobile

Don't worry, Stagman's sign is double-sided, so the westbound travellers could see it and passengers could snap the QR code on their mobile phones and get linked to the STAG petition.

We were so STAGgered by the contrast that we recorded 30 minutes of westbound A303 traffic as a video.  We've either speeded it up a wee bit or most of the traffic was travelling at over 400mph.  Either way, the clip only last about 18 seconds!

Clearly, something odd has been happening.  Despite it being a fine and sunny weekend, it seems the level of traffic on the A303 has been surprisingly light; certainly much less than we had anticipated.  We expect that we are going to see that sort of traffic density from mid-Maundy Thursday into next weekend.   So this odd phenomenon over the weekend seems to be the first confirmed case of the "Stonehenge Effect".

So what is the Stonehenge Effect?  Well, it seems that the closure of the A344 and the "visit Stonehenge by timed appointment (preferred) policy" has driven the majority of those who used to stop on the A344 for a few minutes, or those who might pop in for a 30 minute look-see, to do something else.

Those of you who regularly use the A303 know exactly what they do.  They get parallel with the stones, just west of Stonehenge Bottom, they slow, or even come to a complete stop, then a passenger or even the driver will whip out a smart-phone or camera and take a snap - or even a selfie!   "It's only a second or ten," they would plead if stopped by Wiltshire Police's finest.  "What harm can it possibly do?

Well, dear traveller.  It seems that you have been the victim of something called a soliton - a self-reinforcing solitary wave.  It's a well recognised phenomenon on roads and motorways that is also called a traffic wave, a stop wave, or a traffic shock.  It's usually created when some muppet brakes hard in traffic for no apparent reason, or changes lane without indicating, forcing traffic behind to brake as well.  Now cars can join a queue of standing traffic faster than they can leave the queue, so normally the soliton travels back down the road in the opposite direction to the normal traffic flow as shown in the diagram below.  The blue bulge represents the volume of traffic on a "normal" road.  Here the traffic is trying to go from right to left.  The big red arrow shows that when the soliton forms, it moves against the traffic - once the event that caused. it in the first place has ended.

However, at Stonehenge Bottom, we have a nightmare situation.  Lots of similar soliton-generating events are happening at exactly the same point on the A303 - by Stonehenge.  In this case, once the soliton has formed, the start point stays exactly where it was and the end keeps on travelling back against the traffic flow.   It should be fairly obvious that a major jam is going to form even with relatively light traffic and that is why we have been having problems all winter.

Soliton's also form when sheer volume of traffic blocks the A303 at choke points or turnings - such as the ends of each dual-carriageway section of the road where traffic is compressed back into a single carriageway.  When the westbound traffic is really busy on the A303, a second soliton is often formed west of Winterbourne Stoke near Deptford and the rear of the soliton moves back east towards Winterbourne Stoke and collides with the leading edge of the Stonehenge soliton.  The result is a massive and persistent jam - such as the ones that will begin next weekend.

What can be done about it and how can we stop the soliton's forming before the A303 is dualled?  Fairly simply, maybe.  Traffic management, pure and simple.  The best way to achieve this is probably counter-intuitive, but it would simply to be to turn the A303 back into a single carriageway road, on all the dualled sections, from Thursday lunchtime to Monday lunchtime.  That would get rid of all the 2-into-1 soliton's.  The Stonehenge soliton can be prevented if the traffic is kept moving continuously through the World Heritage site.  The best way to do this would be to prevent cars from seeing the stones.  If this can't be done, because it conflicts with World Heritage Site aspirations, etc., then the section of road must be policed effectively with the full economic costs of doing this falling to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

So, we now have another meaning for our SH2 symbol - in addition to parasitising HS2 with its meaning of "Stonehenge Dual-carriageway" it now can also mean "Soliton Here As Well!"

Devon County Council Thinking on the A303/A30 Stuck in the Devonian Age

Devon County Council currently have a survey running on the SurveyMonkey website.  You can find it here.

The sad thing is, when you read the questions it seems that Devon County Council are thinking along very narrow lines.  Statements like:

"Recognising that much of this stretch is through the Blackdown Hills which is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, any solution must be sensitive to the environment. Given the economic climate, it is also likely that any improvements will take place over a long period of time, so they must be planned and work in harmony together as the scheme evolves. Dualling is not likely to occur, but please outline your thoughts on how the problems detailed above might be solved", are terribly negative, and yet positively Devonian (in the geological sense!).  This attitude to the A303 is depressingly common. 

If you ever use the A303 over the Blackdown Hills, I strongly urge you to take the survey and let Devon County Council know what you think about the problems that need to be addressed and the opportunities that exist to solve them.

Like the Stonehenge A303 section, the Blackdown Hills are going to be a hotbed of contention and rightly so, it's another beautiful area of the country and part of the reason many are heading west in the first place.  Just like the Stonehenge section, there are lots of vested interests and pet solutions that cloud the issue, get folks hot under the collar and divert them from productive thinking.  So, as with Stonehenge, the Blackdown Hills need special attention.

What is it we are actually trying to achieve along the A303/A30 corridor and what are the compromises that no-one wants to make?  I'd argue the following, and given the recent problems with the Exeter-Penzance rail line, I'd argue even more strenuously than previously:

- we want a fast, reliable and sustainable route running from the Hampshire border to the tip of Cornwall;
- we want to maximise the number of routes (rail, A303 M4/M5) as far westwards as possible for maximum resilience;
- it must have minimal impact on local communities;
- it must have minimal impact on areas of outstanding natural beauty, SSI and the like;
- it has to be affordable

The route options seem to be along the current route of the A303 - it's always going to be hilly and have twists and turns and be vulnerable to adverse weather, but it does have the advantage of being short and impacting on a very small population.

Second is diverting off the current A303 at Ilminster, along the A358 towards Taunton and then joining the M5.  Attractive to some as it avoids the Blackdown Hills, but is the least resilient route option available as it merges all the east-west traffic well to the east of Exeter.

Third is the southern option, cutting south west from Ilminster and then following the path of the A35, between the Blackdown Hills AONB and the East Devon AONB.  The attraction of this route is that it avoids cutting through the centre of the Blackdown Hills AONB and keeps two trunk roads running to the west until Exeter.  On the downside, it is the route that would affect the greatest number of communities and two AONB.

But again, perhaps innovation is needed here.  Who says that both carriageways of the A303 have to run along the same route?  A  fourth option would be to take westbound traffic along the current route of the A303 and A30 from Ilminster to Exeter.  Eastbound traffic could be routed along the M5 to Taunton and back to the current route at Ilminster.  Of course, this might prove an absolute embuggerance for the small communities along the current route of the A303, but it's a question that needs to be asked.   There are possibly other innovative solutions  - westbound via the A35 and eastbound via the M5, etc - but all need to be identified and put on the table!

A Treatise on Not Cutting the Mustard?

Some of the questions that have been puzzling us for a while now are:

How do you go about establishing the cost:benefit of upgrading the A303 to dual carriageway?

How do you determine if the cost is affordable?

What do we actually mean by "cost" and "affordability"?

These are more than just semantic questions because, to a large extent, they should underpin the entire A303 feasibility study now underway.

We would argue that while both "cost" and "affordability" clearly have major financial components, there are many other non-financial issues that need to be taken into consideration when determining the feasibility of any solution to the A303's problems.  This is a topic we will be re-examining from time to time over the coming months, but this week, we've had the opportunity to look at a couple of the issues - financial cost and national infrastructure resilience,  in a slightly different way.  Why?  Well, Network Rail were able to reopen the main Exeter to Penzance railway line, through Dawlish, to South Devon and Cornwall after the damage wreaked by the February storms.

The line was closed for 8 weeks and the repairs are said to have costed £35 million - but what does that really mean.

Shortly after the first storm ripped the coastal track apart, two other events happened that impacted on travel to Devon and Cornwall from the rest of the UK.  First there was flooding and a crash on the A303.  Because of flooding on many of the roads to the north and south of the A303, there were no alternative diversions. The only option for westbound travellers was to backtrack to Wiltshire and head north for the M4.

Then the unthinkable happened - a crash on the westbound M4 closed that as well.  We spoke to some fairly senior Highways Agency chaps a couple of weeks ago, who volunteered that the agencies involved in clearing this accident from the carriageway had been put under an immense amount of pressure to do so - and to do it damn quickly.  Mother Nature and Murphy's Law had combined to make the point that the national transport infrastucture to the west of England was not exactly resilient.  For a couple of hours there was no usable, direct east-west route across the south of England.  OK, it was only for a couple of hours, but even that ought to make people sit up and think seriously about transport resilience.   Every time the A303 is at a standstill, one third of the strategic routes to the West Country are not operational.  The same is true for the rail route and the M4/M5.

So what financial value do these routes have?  Is it possible to make a stab at the financial impact the rail closure has had?  Well yes, it is and folks in Devon and Cornwall have been doing just that.  Visit Devon reckons that the tourist industry in Devon has lost around £31 million over the eight weeks closure.  Visit Cornwall reckons the loss to the Cornish tourist industry has been around £18 million. 

The financial loss jusst to the city of Plymouth has been estimated at £1 million pounds a day - another £50 million.  Plymouth has a population of over quarter of a million.  As the population of Devon runs to over a million souls and Cornwall another half a million, then the pro-rata costs of losing the Exeter to Penzance line for 8 weeks has probably been in excess of £400 million, or £50 million a week.  So the financial value of 1/3 of the strategic routes into the West of England is £50 million per week - just for Devon and Cornwall.

If each of the three routes is equally valuable, then the same thinking could be applied to the A303 - which also passes through Wiltshire and Somerset and the problems on it affect both those counties too.  Lets be conservative though and halve the financial impact of the A303 on the residents of Somerset and Wiltshire, as we have more alternative north/south routes.   That would increase the "value" of the A303 to the economy of the West of England to £70 million per week:  £10 million per day.

So, as most traffic uses the A303 during the hours of daylight, the working day, that's roughly £1 million per hour.  Next time you get delayed or stuck on the A303 for an hour or two, just think of what that delay is costing the economy - and then add in your own and your fellow travellers costs - and a sum to compensate for the inconvenience, the added pollution, the stress, and the list goes on.

Now, let's be honest here.  We've taken figures snatched out of the air by others with no idea of their reliability, mixed them up with some fairly accurate demographics and then made a sweeping assumption about relative values of road and rail routes - at best a SWAG ( a scientific, wild-arsed guess).  But if decisions are going to be made about the future of the A303 on "cost" grounds, then these are the very types of numbers that we should expect Government to be able to present - but in their case, with a full audit trail. 

Anything less won't cut the mustard.