So Dave and I made two presentations at the National Infrastructure Open Floor Hearing last evening - me for STAG and Dave for Shrewton Parish Council. The panel of inspectors were 5 including
Madam Chair Wendy McKay, all of whom kept the expected "poker faces" not allowing opinion either way to show!!
This is what I said:
"Good evening Madam Chair, gentlemen of the panel,
My name is Janice Hassett and I am the Founder of Stonehenge Traffic Action Group – STAG for short.
The campaign was set up in 2013 to fix the Stonehenge section of the A303 which is now over capacity by 84%. This increase has caused traffic to Rat Run through local villages as drivers follow sat navs to avoid the continued queues – and who can blame them….I wouldn’t want to sit in that queue for sometimes upwards of 1 and a half hours over 7 miles.
I presented a petition to Parliament in July 2014 because arguably, our village of Shrewton which lies to the west just outside the World Heritage Site, and 2 miles from the monument, suffers most from this Rat Run traffic. Our Speed Watch team regularly register upwards of 40 mph. During Easter, a Speed Indicator Device (smiley face) was installed in both directions on London Road from 9th April - 24th April. It registered 78 mph within the 30 mph confines of the village at 22.25 hrs on the 15th April. The speed device is situated at just one of the four entries to our village and the figures make interesting reading….in just 15 days it told us that 67,030 vehicles used the London Road entry point and that equates to 4403 per day average, on just one of our roads!!! All of the traffic has to use either our High Street or Tanners Lane neither of which are suitable for this continued traffic. Cob cottages are suffering as a result and there is a paucity of pavements in the village. We have elderly, mothers with children, dog walkers, cyclists and horse riders all trying to go about their daily lives and having to avoid nose to tail traffic, aggressiveness, poor air quality and litter thrown from vehicles.
Madam Chair, may I point out that the majority of the people objecting to this project, don’t live in our village and very often live 80 plus miles from the problem….some even live in other countries or even other continents. Here are some of my own facts for the naysayers:
Firstly: The tunnel - will be some 400 meters south of the monument and IS NOT GOING UNDER THE MONUMENT! as has been suggested.
Secondly: The tunnel roof will be some 22 meters from ground surface - that's the height of two normal sized 2 story houses built on top of one another.
Thirdly: Yes during construction, there will very likely be some disturbance to archaeology at the portals east and west but the tunnel will be 50 meters underground....As I have said many times - I'm not aware that we have ever buried our dead that deep!!!
Whilst we appreciate fixing the A303 around Stonehenge will create disruption for us all, and in fact will probably unearth further archaeology, would this be a bad thing, since there is undiscovered archaeology all over the UK. Life must evolve and finding new artifacts may well be to the good. I’m certain that archaeologists from Highways England, work closely with National Trust archaeologists and Heritage England, have come together to find common ground and the changes will be carried out appropriately and in a sympathetic manner, opening up the route to assist the economy of the West country, whilst returning the land to nature and wild life and….giving us back our village. Putting the A303 into a tunnel will achieve all of this and there is no reason why there cannot be a balance between the living and the dead!"
Madam Chair Wendy McKay, all of whom kept the expected "poker faces" not allowing opinion either way to show!!
This is what I said:
"Good evening Madam Chair, gentlemen of the panel,
My name is Janice Hassett and I am the Founder of Stonehenge Traffic Action Group – STAG for short.
The campaign was set up in 2013 to fix the Stonehenge section of the A303 which is now over capacity by 84%. This increase has caused traffic to Rat Run through local villages as drivers follow sat navs to avoid the continued queues – and who can blame them….I wouldn’t want to sit in that queue for sometimes upwards of 1 and a half hours over 7 miles.
I presented a petition to Parliament in July 2014 because arguably, our village of Shrewton which lies to the west just outside the World Heritage Site, and 2 miles from the monument, suffers most from this Rat Run traffic. Our Speed Watch team regularly register upwards of 40 mph. During Easter, a Speed Indicator Device (smiley face) was installed in both directions on London Road from 9th April - 24th April. It registered 78 mph within the 30 mph confines of the village at 22.25 hrs on the 15th April. The speed device is situated at just one of the four entries to our village and the figures make interesting reading….in just 15 days it told us that 67,030 vehicles used the London Road entry point and that equates to 4403 per day average, on just one of our roads!!! All of the traffic has to use either our High Street or Tanners Lane neither of which are suitable for this continued traffic. Cob cottages are suffering as a result and there is a paucity of pavements in the village. We have elderly, mothers with children, dog walkers, cyclists and horse riders all trying to go about their daily lives and having to avoid nose to tail traffic, aggressiveness, poor air quality and litter thrown from vehicles.
Madam Chair, may I point out that the majority of the people objecting to this project, don’t live in our village and very often live 80 plus miles from the problem….some even live in other countries or even other continents. Here are some of my own facts for the naysayers:
Firstly: The tunnel - will be some 400 meters south of the monument and IS NOT GOING UNDER THE MONUMENT! as has been suggested.
Secondly: The tunnel roof will be some 22 meters from ground surface - that's the height of two normal sized 2 story houses built on top of one another.
Thirdly: Yes during construction, there will very likely be some disturbance to archaeology at the portals east and west but the tunnel will be 50 meters underground....As I have said many times - I'm not aware that we have ever buried our dead that deep!!!
Whilst we appreciate fixing the A303 around Stonehenge will create disruption for us all, and in fact will probably unearth further archaeology, would this be a bad thing, since there is undiscovered archaeology all over the UK. Life must evolve and finding new artifacts may well be to the good. I’m certain that archaeologists from Highways England, work closely with National Trust archaeologists and Heritage England, have come together to find common ground and the changes will be carried out appropriately and in a sympathetic manner, opening up the route to assist the economy of the West country, whilst returning the land to nature and wild life and….giving us back our village. Putting the A303 into a tunnel will achieve all of this and there is no reason why there cannot be a balance between the living and the dead!"
Anyone who is still saying...."we don't want a tunnel", well we are where we are and if this is what's on the table etc.....The Inspectorate have 5 months left with further Hearings in the pipeline, to decide the way forward and the result will be with us October 31st when the process then proceeds to Chris Grayling MP for Transport and he will take a further 3 months to give us his decision.
STAG: working for the people of this village!
STAG: working for the people of this village!
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