If you are driving by Stonehenge on the A303, can you urgently help us gather some evidence? The government is proposing a £1.7billion tunnel scheme under the world heritage site which has been criticised by many bodies, but they want to improve traffic flow.
We would like evidence to show whether it is just the slowing to view the monument that causes congestion, which could lead to a solution that is much less destructive and costly (in money and carbon terms) - maybe just planting some trees! Please see the details here and send us any data you can capture. Thanks.
Awaiting documents.. watch this space!
This report is generated from a public consultation on options for the scheme in early 2021, and is Agenda Item 8 for the first meeting of the new Wiltshire Council cabinet on 1st June. The Director - Highways and Environment - recommends the scheme is progressed, using the "Long Eastern Route" (Option 10c, shown in brown on the image here), so not signalling any change of direction for the new term on roads!
There will be further consultation so we intend to plan a response.
Memorandum by A36/A350 Corridor Alliance (TYP 48)
Wiltshire road campaigning was in full swing twenty years ago! Follow this link to a very readable statement written by veteran activist Patrick Kinnersly, which was an appendice to the minutes of the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions. Patrick says, "The people did not actually ask for this: in Wiltshire's local transport plan consultation, stakeholders put new roads at the bottom of a list of seven priorities, with investment in public transport at the top." How much has really changed?
​
Threatened Bats Threaten Damaging A350 Bypass and Housing at Yarnbrook
Wiltshire Council's A350 upgrade plans and highway-friendly transport policies threaten the 2030 Carbon neutral commitment in its climate resolution, so it is interesting to get news from White Horse Alliance secretary and veteran campaigner Patrick Kinnersly, who spearheaded the defeat of the damaging Westbury Eastern Bypass, that another piece of the council's jigsaw puzzle is turning up missing, according to November 2020 admissions by Paddy Bradley, CEO of the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Economic Partnership (SWLEP). The problem: disregarding a threatened species. Read more.
Here is a link to the website of the main campaign against the proposed A303 expressway - the plan recently approved by the Secretary of State for Transport. The site contains petitions, evidence in support of the campaign and link to the crowdfunder for the legal case.
New evidence of Andrew Nicolson, MSc, Wiltshire
This is the version of Andrew's research article that he sent to the Secretary of State for Transport just before the decision to approve the A303 Stonehenge scheme on 12 November 2020. Andrew has been using original tools to confirm that 'rubbernecking' - drivers who slow down when distracted by the view of Stonehenge - is a major cause of the traffic hold-ups, and could be regulated by low-impact screening, so building the £2Bn twin bored tunnels is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. To read his excellent article go HERE
Chippenham Urban Expansion HIF Bid
All the information, links to the 'Future Chippenham' consultation (including responses obtained via FoI), and campaign group CAUSE Wiltshire are posted separately here.
A36/A350/A303 Corridor Alliance
A very long-standing and effective transport/anti-road campaign umbrella focusing on routes between Bristol and M4 and Southampton and South Coast.
Here is their Aims document. This link refers to the 2000's successful campaign against Westbury Eastern Bypass which used the name White Horse Alliance.
UK government's own climate laws may halt roadbuilding plans
The first sign that the government was in serious trouble over the long-mooted expansion of Heathrow airport came in a little-noticed letter from the Department for Transport in May 2019. In it, a government official acknowledged for the first time that the UK’s obligations under the Paris agreement, and its carbon budgets, would have to be taken into account in infrastructure planning decisions... Continue reading The Guarding article HERE