Some of the Daftest Things Heard at the A303 Consultation Presentations

Most folk who have been along to the A303 Stonehenge Scheme Public Consultations went to find out more, to learn of the proposals and to ask questions of Highways England.  So, I guess you would have hoped, expected really, that the people fronted up by Highways England would be fully up to speed with the documentation and underpinning information.  You would also have hoped they would be familiar with the current situation on the A303 and know why some of the jams occur, even though the overall flow of traffic would suggest it shouldn't be happening.

What got us thinking about this in the first place was overhearing one of the presenters/hosts telling a visitor, who was not from the immediate area, and telling them quite authoritatively, that the speed limit on the A303 past Stonehenge was 50 mph!  That's right, 50 mph!   Certainly news to us locals who have been driving it for decades.

Another example was a local who was interested in the phosphatic chalk issue.  This is the reportedly 15 metre thick band of an unusual (for the UK and Europe) form of chalk that underlies Stonehenge.  It was reported back in 2014 and Highways England are, as this is being written, taking samples to establish how far it extends and how much of a problem it is actually going to present.  You see, it's consistency is not at all rock-like and it seems that it gives off what have been described as high levels of radon gas - just like the granite rocks in Cornwall.   It's a bit of a problem when it comes to disposal of the spoil from the tunnel as you don't really want the phosphatic chalk leaching into the water table, nor do you want the decay products of the radon, known as radon daughters, or,  in these politically correct times radon progeny, which are the decay products of radon-222.

"Don't worry!" said the nice man from Highways England, the problem will only last for 3 days.  Oh really!  The decay of radon looks like this:

So, another error of fact.  The half-life of radon is 3.8 days, but that doesn't mean its all gone after this time, just that half the radioactivity has decayed.  He also forgot to mention that radon is produced by the decay of elements in the thorium and uranium series - and these have a half-life measured in billions of years.   Oh, he forgot to mention the nastiness of the radon progeny.  Unlike radon, which is a gas, the progeny - Lead-210, Bismuth-210 and Polonium-210 can be deposited on dust particles that blow around in the wind or get deposited in soil and water and then taken up plants, animals and people.   Of course, this is only a hypothetical issue at the moment and the levels of radon and radon progeny might turn out to be insignificant in the greater scheme of things, but that doesn't excuse misleading people.

One of the daftest things we have heard, and heard in this context is perfectly accurate, was the "sound booth".  Just about everyone we've spoken to thought this was something of a joke.  Listen to the recorded sound of the A303 taken a couple of meters from the edge of the carriageway and then walk 5 paces to the door of Manor Barn and listen to the sound of the real A303 about 25 times further away.  Guess what, the real A303 sounded much, much louder, even when the real sound level should have been between 9dB(A) and 12dB(A) lower by virtue of distance.  We would have thought it not too difficult to have had the volume on the earphones turned up to a level that recreated reality - but would that have made the bypass options, and the new Countess Roundabout flyover in Amesbury,  sound unpleasantly, but maybe realistically loud?

By far the daftest, yet most worrying thing heard, goes to the Highways England oft-repeated mantra that "you can't expect the level of detail you are asking for at this stage of the project when there are two alternative bypass routes".  Really?  Bear in mind the whole A303 Stonehenge Scheme has been lauded as one of the most expensive road schemes ever undertaken in the UK, it may come as a surprise to some to take a look at the Highways England website Pre-Consultation documents for the Lower Thames Crossing at Dartford  a scheme that even at the pre-consultation stage, had all the detail and information we have been asking for with respect to the A303 - but there it was done for 4 routes.  No doubt Highways England will come out with some fatuous comment to the effect that the Thames Crossing was atypical, somehow different, anomalous.  Baloney!

What the Lower Thames Crossing was, even if it wasn't perfect, was "best practise" and that is something everyone needs to reflect upon.