As we said a couple of posts ago, there seems to have been
very little activity over the summer regarding the A303/A30/A358 corridor
feasibility study, which, given the Parliamentary recess, summer holidays and,
for once, a half-way reasonable summer, isn’t all that surprising. That isn’t to say nothing has been
going on. It seems the study is a
bit like a swan on water – not much going on above the surface, but some
furious (?) paddling going on below.
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| Robert Goodwill MP |
We are a bit disappointed though. Back at the start of the year, we (STAG) wrote to the Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, Robert Goodwill MP,
expressing our interest, as a local pressure group in the Stonehenge area, in
getting involved in all stages of the study. Back in January, Goodwill’s Assistant Private Secretary came
back with the following response:
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| A Minion, but maybe not the correct DfT Minion? |
“…We are also
conducting national events to gather views from environmental organisations and
other motoring and business groups.
We understand your
interest in the study and rest assured, we plan to engage more widely with
local groups in the next few weeks. I will ensure that you are kept informed”.
An apparent show of goodwill by Goodwill and his trusty
minion. Unfortunately, these were hollow words and there has been no
engagement or even contact as promised.
We do get a few snippets from the meetings that are going
ahead though. The latest was held
in Taunton just over a week ago. John Glen MP (Con – Salisbury) was the only MP
there at the start of the meeting.
Wiltshire Council were represented by Cllr Fleur De Rhe-Philippe and Mr
Parvis Khansari. David Heath MP (Lib-Dem
- Somerton and Frome) represented Somerset interests.
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| John Glen MP |
John Glen pressed home the well-considered view that they
realised that any solution without a bypass for Winterbourne Stoke, and a
deliverable solution at Stonehenge, was not going to make the A303 a reliable
strategic route to SW.
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| David Heath MP |
David Heath seems to have suggested that the DfT should
press ahead with improving other bits of the corridor, even if a solution at Stonehenge
is too expensive. To us that
smacks of selfish-self-interest and is profoundly illogical; spending lots of
public money to improve roads that the majority of users at peak periods will
still have to queue to join and to leave.
A case of blinkered vision! Let’s hope he is taken to task by Salisbury Lib-Dems when he
visits the city this week.
All in all, it seems that the officials at DfT don’t want
too much detailed information out in the public domain until they have got all
the costings sorted out. It is
clear that they are considering more than one potential solution and options
for solutions that both involve and don’t involve tunnels of varying lengths,
along various routes.
Superficially, at least, it seems they have kept open minds and haven’t
yet been forced to accept historic solutions.
In typical government fashion, when some detail does emerge,
we might expect to see costings for several different options with a “Do
Nothing” option (there are significant costs attached to doing nothing in terms
of lost tourist and business) and a “preferred” option or two. Time will tell.
The good news is that English Heritage and the National
Trust seem to be being a little more open-minded than they have been in the
past. On the down-side, the
Stonehenge Alliance seem to be less willing to compromise. Sadly, that is what it will need
to come down to, negotiation and compromise by all parties.
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| John Hayes MP |
In a further development on Monday this week, John Glen MP took
the opportunity to press his case for the A303 improvement with the new roads
minister the Rt Hon John Hayes MP (Con - South Holland and The Deepings). Mr Glen particularly stressed the need
to produce a solution for the whole of the A303 corridor and that to improve
parts of the A303 without solving the Stonehenge conundrum would be a failure .
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