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Stonehenge and its Environs

Highways England Consultation — A303/Stonehenge

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Rhiannon R
Rhiannon Jan 18, 2017 21:48:19
Replying to thesweetcheat

What is this, it makes no sense. Salisbury's nowhere near the A303, it's miles south. It'd be 10s of miles of ploughing a huge road through the Wiltshire countryside and the Cranborne AONB. Surely it'd cost a squillion pounds and piss off thousands of people.

Am I just an idiot but are things SO BAD how they are at the moment? It's just a traffic jam on a road isn't it? God knows I sit in those every day. Isn't that better than cutting a big tunnel through the landscape. I'd be happy if they just left all this alone. They shut the old road off, didn't that make a bit of a difference? I don't really understand.

What are we / the government caring about here - traffic issues or returning the landscape to fields (the archaeology getting lost either way). So it looks pretty? and empty? This is the south of england. It's too late to pretend there's no road.

that's my opinion today anyway.

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Jan 18, 2017 22:03:32
Replying to Rhiannon

Rhiannon wrote:
What is this, it makes no sense. Salisbury's nowhere near the A303, it's miles south. It'd be 10s of miles of ploughing a huge road through the Wiltshire countryside and the Cranborne AONB. Surely it'd cost a squillion pounds and piss off thousands of people.

Am I just an idiot but are things SO BAD how they are at the moment? It's just a traffic jam on a road isn't it? God knows I sit in those every day. Isn't that better than cutting a big tunnel through the landscape. I'd be happy if they just left all this alone. They shut the old road off, didn't that make a bit of a difference? I don't really understand.

What are we / the government caring about here - traffic issues or returning the landscape to fields (the archaeology getting lost either way). So it looks pretty? and empty? This is the south of england. It's too late to pretend there's no road.

that's my opinion today anyway.

It's always been mine.

N nigelswift
nigelswift Jan 19, 2017 06:51:15
Replying to Rhiannon

There's also the fact that a longer tunnel being too expensive is a value judgement not an absolute fact. There's talk of an 18 mile tunnel between Manchester and Sheffield and 22 miles of tunnels under the Chilterns area for HS2. Then there's effing Trident.

T tjj
tjj Jan 19, 2017 08:23:13
Replying to Rhiannon

I've read/listened to the arguments against the short tunnel and feel clear it is a wrong course of action for the Stonehenge WHS given the damage it would cause. I cannot help but draw some comparisons with Avebury which has a busy road actually going through the stone circle itself - albeit not anything as busy as the A303. It would be unthinkable to divert or widen that road because of the damage it would cause. I hate to keep saying it but it is cars and the numbers of people using them that is the problem - a tunnel will not lessen the traffic or the traffic jams it will just take it out of view.

And then of course there is the cynical opinion that a tunnel would give EH/NT almost sole rights to the 'view of Stonehenge'.

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