Four Thousand Holes in Blackburn Lancashire, Four Hundred Cameras Around Shrewton, Wiltshire

I do have to apologise to the memory of the late and great John Lennon for abusing the lyrics of "A Day in the Life" but I simply couldn't resist drawing the analogy.

Yesterday, the Salisbury Journal published a very interesting article on the A303 entitled simply: "A303 traffic survey to be carried out"

Basically, the story explains that Atkins, the traffic management consultancy will be placing number plate recognition cameras along the A303 and on surrounding roads as part of a scheme to track vehicle movements on the traffic-choked highway.The Journal article claims that there will be hundreds of these cameras on the surrounding roads, but we suspect that this might be something of an exaggeration and that perhaps 10-20 NPR cameras might be closer to the mark.

Winterbourne Stoke resident, Chairman of the parish council and Wiltshire councillor Ian West observed: "Residents of Shrewton believe the speed and volume of traffic in Shrewton has been made worse by the closure of the A344.

One of the main concerns expressed by local residents is the speed and volume of traffic, it is quoted as one of the main safety factors which people see as a barrier to travelling around their communities on foot or by bicycle or to letting children travel independently. This has very much affected the quality of life in Shrewton.

We very much look forward to the results of the Atkins survey because the increase in traffic is becoming unbearable in Shrewton and the surrounding villages both sides of the A303.” 

Of course, it isn't just Shrewton or indeed the residents here in Winterbourne Stoke who are suffering as a result of the A344 closure.  We (WiSBAng) and the Stonhenge Traffic Action Group (STAG), regularly hear of problems being caused as far afield as Berwick St James, Larkhill, Durrington, Bulford and Amesbury.

Although we wholeheartedly welcome this new initiative and data-gathering exercise, we feel duty-bound to point out something that some might think verges on negligence on the part of Wiltshire Council.  Over the last two decades and more, every bit of traffic modelling undertaken on the A303 corridor, some of it commissioned by Wiltshire Council, predicted that there would be traffic chaos in the surrounding villages if the A344 were to be closed BEFORE the A303 was upgraded.  For years, Wiltshire Council resisted the closure of the A344 on those grounds, then in 2010/2011 they did an about face and sided with English Heritage in pushing for the closure.

Surprise, surprise.  The A344 was closed and all the traffic models were proved correct. 

Now any competent authority would have undertaken a survey such as that being carried out by Atkins between Monday, August 4th and Sunday, August 10th prior to closing the A344, then do the same again after the closure to ensure the changes had had no adverse effects and to be able to quantify the changes with hard data.  That would have been far too sensible and of course it might have run the risk of exposing, in irrefutable terms, that a mistake had been made in closing the A344 prematurely.  That would never do, would it?

As it is, when Atkins report their findings we will know how bad the situation on all these local roads is, but in the absence of knowing what they were like in quantitative terms before the A344 closure, it is impossible to say how much worse they have become.  We can make some estimates based on earlier surveys, but on fewer roads, using somewhat different methodologies; that's far from ideal.

Stoned Again - Will Summer Solstice 2014 Cause Additional Chaos on the A303

Yesterday,  English Heritage, Wiltshire Police and a host of local stakeholders got together in the Antrobus Hotel in Amesbury to hear the plans for traffic management over the summer solstice period.

For the first time since 2008, the summer Solstice falls on Saturday morning, which means that the crowds might be bigger than in years when the solstice falls during the working week.  Last year, about 20,000 folks turned up to watch the sun rise.  Back in June 2008, 30,000 people turned up to wait through a cold, wet and misty night for a dawn that proved equally cold, wet and misty.  It's a bit early for a weather forecast for the solstice weekend and the Met Office have cocked up the weekend forecasts for this part of the world for the last two weekends running, so I guess the forecast is uncertain. We might expect a bigger crowd than we saw in 2008, simply on the basis that: "Summer 2014 has got to start at some point" and the Solstice weekend is as good a time as any.

The big difference this year is that it is the time the A344 has been closed for the summer Solstice, so the traffic problems that this might cause in the local area are a bit of an unknown, though we can speculate that it isn't going to be pretty.  The biggest question of all for us here at WiSBAng is whether it will cause more problems for the A303, where the weekend traffic situation is already nightmarish, and in the surrounding villages where rat-runners are making life even more unpleasant.

The English Heritage and Wiltshire Police traffic management plan for the solstice period is shown on the map below - please click on it to enlarge.

Basically, EH plan to close access to Stonehenge itself at 14:30 on Friday 20th June and then the new Visitor's centre, arrowed in green on the map, will be closed from 15:00.  The two Byways (Byway 11 and 12) that are close to the stones have been closed under a temporary Traffic Regulation Order to a point about 500 metres south of the A303.

 Apart from a few of the byways, bridleways and footpaths on the MoD ranges which are closed for a live-firing exercise (look out for the red flags), ALL other byways, bridleways, footpaths and roads in the vicinity are open.  That is a little contrary to to English Heritage's Summer Solstice 2014 Conditions of Entry and Information document which claims at the top of page 6 that the A344 is closed.  That is untrue, the route is still open for walkers, cyclists, horse riders, carriage drivers and invalid carriages, but English Heritage would prefer people not to walk along the route of what once was the A344, as they have provided an off-road route to the stones just for the Solstice. 

We expect that motor vehicles stopping and waiting on the A303, the A360 between Longbarrow Roundabout and Airman's Cross and on towards Shrewton will be prevented by the usual coning-off of all likely stopping places.  So anyone wanting to stop in the area is going to have to move further afield.

People arriving at Stonehenge Visitor's Centre, after it closes and before the Solstice car parks are opened at 19:00 on Friday 20th of June, are going to be asked to wait on the B3086 that runs north from the new Visitor's Centre towards the Bustard Crossroads.  So there is the potential here for a bit of chaos, as this section of road is a favourite part of the Friday evening rat-run when the A303 is jammed.  Hopefully, no-one wanting to attend the solstice will turn up until after 19:00.  If lots turn up early, then there is a potential for gridlock.  At the very least, it's likely to see more traffic heading for Shrewton on the London Road (B3086), though where they might go from there is anyone's guess.  They may strike out west on the B390, hoping to rejoin the A303 from the A36, or they could head south on the B3083, here to Winterbourne Stoke.  Some, wanting to see Stonehenge, may head back east on the A360 towards Airman's Corner, adding to the confused, bemused and possibly bloody-minded, heading for the Solstice; let alone the locals just heading home for the weekend.

This is all going to happen during the Friday commute home and coinciding with the weekend peak traffic flow on the A303 (16:00 - 21:00).  English Heritage are trying to persuade everyone wanting to attend the Solstice to go to Salisbury and take public transport up to the World Heritage site; it might persuade some, but again it's an unknown quantity. Roadside signs, from the M3 westwards, will warn people to stay away from Stonehenge if it gets too crowded.  At 19:00, the two new Solstice carparks (marked in blue on the map) will be opened and then people will start to flood in, which has the potential to cause further chaos on all routes in to Airman's Cross as people rush for a parking space.  We are told that these two car-parks have a similar capacity to the old Solstice car-park.

So, we have a fair degree of uncertainty about how things will unfold.   On the one hand, it may be freezing cold and lashing down with rain. People travelling to the West Country may choose to avoid the Stonehenge area entirely, reducing the back-ground traffic flow on the A303.  Solstice-goers may largely choose to take a bus to Stonehenge.  Those few that decide to arrive under their own steam may choose to arrive after the evening peak traffic flow and those that arrive early may follow the advice to wait on the B3086. With luck, no one leaves the A303 in a desperate attempt to avoid traffic jams, as it is flowing freely.  No-one stops to take a snap of the henge as they pass and no-one crashes their cars having been distracted by the herds of flying pigs, performing synchronised acrobatics overhead at the very thought of such a possibility.

Ah, bliss!

On the other hand, Friday 20th June  2014 may turn out to be a balmy night to be followed by a glorious sunny weekend.  Tourist's flood to the West County in their usual droves and follow, lemming-like, their normal routes.  Solstice-goers turn up as usual, on foot or in the usual mix of barely legal motor-vehicles and ignore/miss the exhortations on social media and in the Press to use public transport.  The B3086 is soon blocked, so this leads to problems in both directions on the A360, which eventually spill out onto the Longbarrow Roundabout.  Aging vehicles heading for Stonehenge overheat, blocking the westbound A303 near Stonehenge Bottom and the eastbound traffic just east of Winterbourne Stoke.  Westbound, Eastbound and Northbound traffic on the A303 and A360 will converge and collide, probably literally, around the Longbarrow Roundabout as a result of impatience and short-tempers.  Longbarrow Roundabout grinds to a standstill by mid afternoon and remains grid-locked for hours, and hours.  The last of the broken down and crash-damaged vehicles can't be removed until sometime on Saturday - after the peak of the great slog home has passed.  All those who are stuck on the A303 decide to cut their losses and visit Stonehenge as they aren't going anywhere else; the A303 becomes a large carpark.

Of course, it could get even worse.  God forbid there is a serious accident on any of the surrounding roads, but it is a Friday, and they are such a regular occurrence...

...then we have the possibility that some of the visitor's decide to make a weekend of it, or an impromptu rave or free-festival kicks off.

The reality is likely to be somewhere between these two extremes, but it would be a brave person who is prepared to put hard cash on the outcome.  We will, of course, see what happens in a few days time.

The Measure of Misery - 4-5 Solitons Solitons Per Hour

Standing by the side of the A303 this Bank Holiday weekend, watching the traffic slow down and eventually grind to a halt, is a good excuse to contemplate the infinite, to ponder those deep philosophical questions that have troubled mankind for years.

I was going to suggest it was an opportunity to contemplate ones own navel, but it was a darned sight too cold for that and, in any event, it may be of uncertain legality and is definitely of dubious taste - at least in my case.

Anyway, the deep question I was pondering, watching all those grey and grim-set faces behind the windscreens was: "How do you measure misery?'

I think I now have an answer.  It's 4-5 Solitons Per Hour.

A few weeks ago, I explained how people slowing at Stonehenge could create a soliton generator near Stonehenge and there were others at Longbarrow Roundabout and Stonehenge Bottom.  

Westbound traffic and eastbound soliton

Basically, vehicles joins a queue of traffic faster than than they can leave it, so the point at which traffic stops on the road, moves backwards,  against the direction of vehicle travel, until it meets another soliton and things jam solid, or it meets a stretch of traffic-free road and simply vanishes.   Today, I was watching traffic in Winterbourne Stoke go east and the soliton travel west, from Longbarrow Roundabout back to Winterbourne Stoke and the dual carriageway at Berwick Down.  People-watching is always fascinating, but even more so today as the traffic slowed to a stop.

I've noticed over the last few weeks that these solitons build and disappear in a fairly systematic way.  The periodicity changes in response to traffic volume, so the more traffic, the shorter the interval between solitons.  You can measure this periodicity in solitons per hour (SPH).  Now the fun thing is that people's demeanour changes in response to this periodicity - the higher the SPH, the deeper the misery of the car occupants.  It also changes their reaction to someone stood at the side of the road with a STAG sign and a video camera.

At 0 solitons per hour, the drivers see you, look sheepish as going 60 mph or more in a 40 mph zone is tearing the arse out of things a wee bit and they worry you might be a speed camera or something.   This effect can be enhanced by wearing a yellow, high-vis, dayglo jacket.  Passengers laugh at driver.

At 1 soliton per hour, the drivers sigh a bit, but they are travelling less than 10 mph over the speed limit, so aren't too worried you are a speed camera.  Drivers sweat a bit when they fail to see stationary car ahead.

At 2 solitons per hour, the drivers know you aren't a speed camera and don't give a stuff about you, as they are being slowed on their way home.  Passengers are busting for a pee and they should have stopped at the last place that had a toilet before Wylye.  Still, it benefits the Bell Inn in Winterbourne Stoke with additional passing trade.

At 3 solitons per hour, drivers glare at you, make obscene gestures and frequently open the window and swear at you. They really do seem to blame you for the fact they are stuck in this traffic jam.   Driver screams at passengers and they scream back.  The A303 becomes a place of learning - that is if you want to learn some of the choicer ways to use expletives.  Some drivers try to drive threateningly at the camera and then fail to notice the crossing lights are on red or a driver is turning in or out of the petrol station or pub - yet another near miss!   Smiling at them doesn't seem to help their mood, though it is cathartic for the traffic-watcher.  Waving is even more fun.

At 4 solitons per hour everything changes.  Drivers are no longer angry and abusive.  Instead they seemed resigned to their fate - like a condemned prisoner in a tumbrel, heading to the gallows, with passengers who seem to relish the prospect of joining them.  They attempt to smile in a thin-lipped, dejected way and will sometimes wind their windows down and engage you in conversation.

As I packed up to go home, another soliton was forming and the drivers reaction seemed to be the same.  On the basis of this, then I reckon the Measure of Misery is about 4-5 solitons per hour.

I trundled home to write this piece and then I had a flash of inspiration.  I had finally understood the true meaning of the answer and thus had finally got to grips with the nature of the question.   Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fans will recall that "42" was the answer to life, the universe and everything and that, according to the book, the earth was created to determine what the ultimate question actually was.

Now, I'm beginning to think that the answer wasn't 42, as a numeral, but the first part of a statement "4 to"  as in "4 to 5" or "4 to 400" or even "4 to Infinity"   Of course, as infinity is big, really big, so it wouldn't all fit onto a computer screen.  Consequently, it seems adamantly (even Douglas Adamantly) reasonable to output just the first bit  - "4 to".

Now if that's the real answer, the question now becomes obvious.  "What is the Measure of Misery".

Clearly, Stonehenge is simply the on-off switch for the computer created by the multi-dimensional creatures who resemble white mice.  Experts in the field will see the problem here.  Whilst we are pushing to get the A303 dualled as a means of eliminating traffic misery, the blasted Vogons are intent on eliminating us entirely to construct a new hyperspace bypass.

SWMBO reckons I've been out playing with the traffic for waaaaaaaaaay to long!

STAG Come of Age

Well, it seems that STAG - The Shrewton Traffic Action Group - has come of age.  Born of the frustration and chaos caused by the closure of the A344 at its junction with the A303 and the remodelling of the junctions at Longbarrow and Airman's Cross to pander to the needs of English Heritage, STAG began with a local focus.

The local focus was quite natural and an attempt to get something done quickly to ease the situation caused by large and sometimes very large vehicles trying to negotiate narrow village streets.  In Shrewton's case, this meant squeezing along roads with little or nothing in the way of footpaths, but close to shops, doctor's surgery and school - a recipe for disaster.   But the rat running was soon seen to be much wider spread than just Shrewton - affecting villages for miles around the epicentre of Stonehenge.

Moreover, the poor beggars who are using the rat runs really don't want to be using them themselves; they simply want to get from A to B in a reasonable time - and would you be any differnet in similar circumstances elsewher?  Of course not.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that they are a symptom of the problem and not the root cause.  Whilst we can treat the symptoms and ease things in the short term, we aren't going to solve the problem without treating the underlying disease - the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.   But both approaches need to be followed.

So STAG has evolved - it has two prongs to its campaign - to ease the situation on the local roads on the one hand, but to campaign at every level for SH2 - dualling and bypasses on the A303.

STAG has become the Stonehenge Traffic Action Group - you can find their new blog here.

The A303 at 1000mph - A Competition!

A free-flowing, fast, A303 "Route to the Sun" is the stuff of dreams for most of us who live alongside the slower sections.  I happened across a smashing video that shows the A303 end-to-end in just over 5 minutes.  It was shot on a day and at a time when the traffic was relatively light, but even then, there is the standing traffic on the dualled section of the A303 past Amesbury - just before the standing stones.   You see similar problems at the start of each of the single carriageway sections as the road travels west.  It would have been a much shorter film if we had the SH2!

 

 On a really serious note though, the time spent stuck in traffic from Solstice Park in Amesbury to the Longbarrow Roundabout (before the work was completed and the traffic situation worsened!)  took 1minute and 30 seconds of video time, which equals around 25% of the total time for the whole 90 mile journey.  Just to cover 4.5 miles of the A303 - 5% of the total distance in 25% of the time for the whole journey!

Think of the frayed tempers, the wasted fuel, the pollution and the added costs of goods that could be avoided by implementing SH2 and dualling the A303, bypassing Winterbourne Stoke and the other afflicted villages along its length.  This was only a moderately busy day, not a very busy one.  Imagine the waste that occurs day after day at the peak times of year!


Then take a look at a section of the BBC film of A303 Highway to the Sun as it passes through our village of Winterbourne Stoke. This shows just how difficult simply getting out on to the A303 can be for our local farmer, Rob Turner - and that is for someone driving a large 4 x 4, or even a farm vehicle which is very hard to ignore (and sadly, some folks do try).  Imagine how much harder it is for someone in a small car,  a motorcyclist, or, god forbid, a cyclist to get out onto the A303 safely.

COMPETITION

We enjoyed the A303 at 1000mph so much, we thought we'd turn it into a competition - and we have a bottle of bubbly on offer to the winner.   The rules are very simple.  All you have to do is repeat the the journey along the whole 90 mile length of the A303 and record it on video.  Submit the video to YouTube and send us the link using the Contact Form at the foot of the page.

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 junction with the A36 at Wylye.

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 1st January 2014 - or as soon afterwards as we can manage!

If 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 we can find a few sponsors amongst the business community along the A303 corridor.

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

UPDATE To The Competition - By Popular Demand.

A second bottle of bubbly is on offer for the slowest video-recorded journey between the Countess Roundabout in Amesbury and the Wylye interchange with the A36 - no need to record a trip along the entire A303.

Rules 2, 3, 4 and 5 above also apply.

You might be very lucky and win both bottles!

A Council of War: A Meeting of Minds

Another Friday and the traffic build-up on the A303 continues.  In some ways, this was like every Friday, but in other ways, this was very different.  We held a war council in Shrewton.  This seems set to be the first of many and, as interest grows, more and more villages will be represented and welcomed into the fold.

You'd think that in this day and age, face-to-face meetings were unnecessary and could be facilitated by technology, but one of the other nasty little secrets of the A303 is that whilst some of the UK's biggest and most important broadband trunks run under it - from London to Cornwall and then off across the Atlantic - the villages that straddle the A303 have some of the worst broadband connectivity in the country.

On the plus side, we have a great sense of community here in rural Wiltshire and whilst villages each have their own identity,  they are also actively linked to other local villages in a sort of mutual support network.   Usually, it doesn't extend much beyond church, fete, pub, etc; unless something crops up to grab our common attention - and the A303, the worsening problems created by the closure of the A344, the idiotic roundabout designs at Longbarrow on the A303 and Airman's Cross by the new Stonehenge visitor centre, has done just that; bringing us closer together in the process.

Earlier this evening, despite lots of earlier email and telephone contacts, a bunch of us met up for something of a war council - representatives of STAG and WiSBAng, local and regional politicos, some folks with media and publicity backgrounds, local business people, long-distance commuters, information scientists, others with some fairly arcane skills that  will become very apparent in the weeks and months to come.  The most striking thing was that this was a meeting of minds, everyone willing to listen and every suggestion given an equal hearing.  There was a willingness to take on tasks and an offering of skills that I have rarely seen before.  This campaign is gaining legs.

We have an engagement plan for the next few weeks that will start to address the breadth of this issue - from the local villages, the problem that is the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, the insensitivity of English Heritage to local needs through to the national and international requirements for rapid, safe and green travel across the UK.

Support for this campaign is growing, not only locally and in the obvious constituency of the A303 corridor, but from all parts of the United Kingdom and beyond, into Europe. 

Whether you live in the shadow of Stonehenge, elsewhere in Wiltshire, further West in Somerset and Devon, anywhere else in the UK and Europe or beyond and you want to help, we want to hear from you.

If you want to get involved,  we would ask you to do two things.  First, leave a message for us using the Contact Form at the very foot of this page - just below our FREE ROCKERY offer!  We will get back to you to find out what skills you have to add, what doors you can open and what leverage you can apply.

Second, please could you pop across to the STAG site and sign the petition.

John Glen MP

Yesterday evening I had a very interesting e-mail exchange with John Glen MP regarding his views of the traffic issues in the villages around Stonehenge following the closure of the A344, the changes to the Airman's Cross junction and the "improvements" to the Longbarrow roundabout, as well as the more general issue of the need to dual the A303 along its entire length.

I wanted to elicit John's views for two reasons.  First, I had sensed a perception, rightly or wrongly, in some quarters that, in relation to the A303, John was not being as supportive to his constituents as he might have been.  Second, I wanted to get the views of politicians of all hues at local, regional, national and international level, on this issue and have, or will be extending the offer of space on the blog to make their views known.

John very kindly provided the text below - I've highlighted a couple of points that have particular resonance here at WiSBAng and would like to see feedback from readers:

 The Stonehenge Traffic Action Group STAG campaign gains momentum and I would welcome the opportunity to set out my views to move forward the case for improvements to our congested local roads.

I toured the long-standing and new bottlenecks around Stonehenge with a member of Amesbury Town Council two weeks ago, met with STAG and a number of and parish council members in Shrewton on 29th September and travelled to County Hall to put the case to the most senior Highways Officer in Wiltshire.

I also raised the matter in Parliament on 10th October 2013 at Business questions.

John Glen (Salisbury) (Con):
The closure of the A344 alongside Stonehenge appears to have caused chaos along the A303. The Stonehenge traffic action group is very keen for the roads Minister to make a statement on progress made towards dualling this infamous stretch of road. Will the Leader of the House ensure that that happens?

Mr Lansley:
I completely understand my hon. Friend’s point. I sat in a queue on the A303 in August, so I had the benefit of that experience myself. I will, of course, ask my colleagues at the Department for Transport about this. As my hon. Friend and the House knows, the Department is well aware of the problem and is seeking to deal with it. I hope that, by the end of the year, it will be in a position to make announcements as a result of its study of the relevant options.

I have also secured agreement for the Minister to visit and was interviewed on Wiltshire Radio about it on 5th October and will be on Spire FM in coming days.

There are clearly immediate issues around signage near Stonehenge that the council has agreed to look into; for example,  the current roadside signs directly conflict with sat nav directions, causing a great many tourists to shuttle back and forth between Countess and Longbarrow roundabouts quite needlessly

I think that making the Stonehenge signage far clearer to give first time visitors the confidence to ignore their sat navs will make worthwhile difference and is something that can hopefully now be done fairly quickly. All possible routes to the stones need to be examined to see whether they are optimally signposted.

The bigger issue of the capacity of the A303 is another matter and does not fall under the jurisdiction of the local authority but is a national infrastructure project that is under the spotlight at the moment, with Ministers talking of capital spending once again as part of a series of upgrades to key routes around the country.

The shift from single to dual carriageways causes a great many problems along the entire length of the road and my challenge will  be to go ensure that Wiltshire’s case is heard as clearly as that of Somerset’s  representatives and ensure that any improvements cover the area around Stonehenge before they get into Somerset.

Dualling or tunnelling under the A303 past Stonehenge has been mooted before and government funding was made available before but that the project finally bit the dust after years mired in costly public enquiries and legal challenges from environmentalists, conservationists and archaeologists.

Much as I place the practical needs of the communities along the A303 first and foremost, I have to accept the political reality that the stretch of the road in my constituency runs through a UNESCO World Heritage Site and therefore any road widening here will be subject to far more international scrutiny and greater likelihood of legal challenge than almost anywhere else.

Furthermore when the costs of ameliorating these concerns are fully set out the case for justifying the expenditure when set against other deserving road improvement schemes  elsewhere in the country is an even tougher one to make.

Nevertheless, it is clear to me that our need for improved traffic flow, howsoever achieved, is every bit as urgent as other areas and I plan to make the case as strongly as I can that no money must be spent on the ‘easy’ projects further west until the Stonehenge road issue is resolved. After all, no-one can get there from the east without passing through our overstretched portion of the A303. Repetitious “feasibility” studies which wastefully go over old ground must also be avoided.

To that end, I am pleased to say that, the roads minister has agreed to meet with campaigners from this area – a meeting which I hope will help to convey the strength of locals’ concerns.

I would love to be in a position to deliver a quick and easy solution but, in all honesty, a complex debate lies ahead – one in which my personal views will compete alongside many other  concerns – some of which do not share the same assessment of what will be the best solution.

However, I can assure you it is a battle that I am very much ready for and I am engaged in.

Clearly, John has not been sitting on his laurels and has already achieved quite a bit and has more in the pipeline, or planned.

We must now make sure that the opportunity he has created for us to engage with the road minister is fully taken advantage of and that all the interest groups and Parish Councils, etc.,  from all the villages concerned, are involved in this meeting.

STAG Begins to Lock Horns

It seems that slowly, but surely, the Shrewton Traffic Action Group (STAG) is gaining traction.  In doing so, the Press are beginning to take an interest and that is beginning to get officialdom taking things a little more seriously than they have so far.  They'd better - this is only the beginning.

Both last week and this week, there was some excellent publicity in the Salisbury Journal in relation to the STAG petition and taking it to 10 Downing Street.  This morning, STAG were interviewed by Spire FM and it seems that English Heritage want an informal chat with STAG tomorrow...

...now that will be interesting.  Will it be to offer support for a plan to re-open the A344?  Support for a "cut and shut" two-level dual carriageway past the stones on the route of the original A303 maybe?  To deliver news that Stonehenge has been sold to the Disney Corporation and is being shipped to a more suitable site in the Nevada Desert perhaps.  Or is it just to express their concern that attention is being drawn to the Free Local Residents Passes?

After all, if each of the 30,000 adults in the local area who seem to be eligible for the passes take up the scheme and each takes just one child to visit Stonehenge, just once a year, then this would add 60,000 visitors to the Stonhenge annual visitor statistics.   Put another way, that is a minimum of £384,000 in lost revenues.  If each local visit were to involve 2 adults accompanying 6 children, then the loss could be nearly £700,000 per annum.   Stonehenge gets around 900,000 visitors a year - so if these locals visited Stonehenge just once a year it would represent around 13% of the annual visitors to Stonehenge. Ouch!   If they visit once a month, they will be in the majority and represent a 2-year potential loss of revenue to English Heritage of £16.8 million.

Whatever English Heritage claim to be their motivation to meet with STAG, you might guess that numbers like these would be influencing their thinking - at least a little.

The Need for Evidence-based Decisions on the A303 - Not the Usual Nonsense

Here at WiSBAng we are firm believers in evidence-based government policy, not the usual emotional knee-jerk, ill-educated, gut-feeling, wishy-washy, party politics-driven claptrap to which we are usually subject and which has been the bane of the debate around the future of the A303 and the much needed bypass for Winterbourne Stoke.   

One of the roles of this blog, aside from the occasional rant, is to dig out that evidence and try and put as much of it as possible into one place.  That gives you, the reader, an easy way of getting to it and deciding for yourselves the merits of any particular line of argument.   Make up your own minds – chase the evidence.

Clearly, we don’t have the resources or time to find all the interesting, useful or downright embarrassing evidence ourselves, so if we miss anything, let us know by leaving a comment to a blog post.

English Heritage Lay on Publicity Event for WiSBAng - Well Actually it's the Launch of the Stonehenge Visitor Centre, But No Need to Let Them Have All the Fun

A "Friend of WiSBAng" has passed on the following helpful information:





STOP PRESS: WEDS 18TH DECEMBER – LAUNCH CEREMONY

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-24329692

Put this date in your diary and make sure you have your Stonehenge Residents Passes ready.

If you weren't aware of the fact, the 30,000 local residents living in and around Stonehenge can, indeed should, take up the offer of free access to Stonehenge.

Just 5% of that 30,000 in a wholly peaceful queue on the day with some catchy placards would get our message across. Imagine the chaos if 10% turned up (that’s 3000 protestors). What about the administrative gridlock if 30% of us applied/re-applied for the free passes to which we are entitled under statute - a condition laid down when Stonehenge was gifted to the nation - that’s 9000 calls to process! As you may know, the procedure itself is stone-age, but English Heritage’s membership team will tell you how: 0870 333 1181

We've deliberately quoted the central membership number at EH HQ for fear of ruining the poor dear's life at their local office.

To be honest, all you really need to do is turn up at your local Library with proof of residence in a local village and ask for a Stonehenge Residents Permit - but place a call to English Heritage anyway.

Footnote.

Some wag has already suggested that each local village donates 1square metre of land to a "fighting fund". We divide each of these plots up into 1 million 1 sq mm parcels of land and offer them for sale on eBay.  As a landowner, you'd be entitled to residency and therefore free access to Stonehenge - now that might really set the cat amongst the pigeons.

Update:

Some helpfully inadvertent advice from Susan Greaney, an archaeologist and the Stonehenge museum’s curator,  who observed the following about the former denizens of Stonehenge.

 'They were able to pool together vast resources to construct this extraordinary monument using only simple tools.’  A good lesson for those of us today. 

We need to pool together our resources to ensure that A303 is dualled asap, using only the simple tools available to us like the internet, the press and a wealth of animal cunning.

Setting the Scene

Winterbourne Stoke is a small Wiltshire village that sits astride the A303.  If you’ve ever travelled along this road at any time from Thursday lunchtime to Monday evening – at any time of year – you’ve probably been stuck in a traffic jam in the village.

For that reason alone, you might appreciate why local villagers have been campaigning for a by-pass for over 30 years and why we are now losing patience with those in local, regional, national and even international government who have blocked every attempt to improve the situation.

Why has nothing been done to bypass the Winterbourne Stoke?  The answer is simple – Stonehenge and English Heritage. 

It has been suggested that those in authority have demonstrated, by their actions in relation to Stonehenge and their inaction with respect to the local population, that they care more for the dead than they do the living.   Actually, that isn’t true.  They only care about the ancient dead.  They clearly don’t give a tuppeny damn about those recently killed, permanently maimed or injured on the A303 around Winterbourne Stoke despite their fine words and pretence of concern regarding accident statistics. 

English Heritage and the Highways Agency colluded in their decision to close A344 junction with A303 by Stonehenge this summer, on the grounds of restoring the “historic landscape” and also because of the dangerous nature of the junction – in the last 5 years a single accident resulting in serious injury and one resulting in a slight injury.  Is that a reasonable reaction, or were both agencies indulging in egregious hyperbole? 

Worse still, by a considerable margin, was the collusion of Wiltshire Council, who you might have expected to be a voice of reason and to stand up for the interests of the people on whose behalf they are employed.  Not a bit of it.  They went back on their word, of over 20 years standing, to NOT consider closing the A344 until the A303 was turned into a dual carriageway.

As you sit in your traffic jam as it crawls through our village, glaring angrily at villagers who have the temerity to try and cross the A303 at the one, pedestrian-controlled crossing on the entire length of the A303, you might be forgiven for thinking that it would be hard to get involved in a high-speed, fatal car crash in Winterbourne Stoke.  How wrong you would be!  If the road isn’t at a stand still, it sees traffic travelling at well above the 40mph speed limit and we have carnage on the roads.

Let me put this into context.  If all those killed and injured on the stretch of the A303 immediately either side of Winterbourne Stoke had come from the village, then over ONLY the last 5 years:

1 in 10 households would have had a family member killed

1 in 4 households would have had a family member maimed

Every household would have had someone injured seriously enough to become a police statistic.

Things are even worse if you just consider this same 5 year period and the 1mile stretch of the A303 through the village:

2 dead, 3 seriously injured and 6 injured seriously enough to become police statistics.

Based on the English Heritage/Highways Agency/Wiltshire Council logic, then the A303 should have been closed to through traffic years ago to protect the Neolithic landscape in and around Winterbourne Stoke and to prevent the carnage on the A303.  Tearing up the road surface and restoring it as an ancient sheep drove to Honiton seems a sensible, inexpensive and achievable option.

And it has advantages for you my dear beleaguered, yet sadly static, travellers.  You’d have to find an alternative route to or from the West Country and wouldn’t get stuck here or risk life and limb when the road is open.   We could apply the same approach to the roads around Shrewton and the A36 around Stapleford, so you couldn’t get stuck there either.