This is our response to Stonehenge Alliance's open letter to Grant Shapps MP
26th
January 2020
The
Rt. Hon. Grant Shapps MP
Secretary
of State for Transport
Department
for Transport
Great
Minster House,
33
Horseferry Road,
London
SW1P 4D
Dear
Mr Shapps,
You
will have received an “open letter” from a group calling
themselves “The Stonehenge Alliance” dated 20th
January 2020 and I should like if I may, to make our response to this
letter as the Founder of :
STAG:
Stonehenge Traffic Action Group There has been a blog running for
our action group since 2013: https://staga303.blogspot.com
I
appreciate, this is not an easy decision for you to make I grant you,
but the people of Stonehenge Alliance don’t live where we live, in
fact some of their supporters live 80 miles plus from the monument,
some even live in other countries or other continents. They
therefore, know nothing about the traffic in our village of Shrewton
caused by the now over capacity Stonehenge section of the A303. The
people at Stonehenge Alliance insist that traffic on the A303 has not
increased since 2004 vis their submission to the Inspectorate in
2019. We can disprove this statement from vehicle numbers
registered on our Speed Indicator Devices (SIDs) which show what we
as local residents to the monument have to put up with. I would
urge you to take a look at the figures posted up on the blog because
over 169,000 vehicles during the month of August, is just not
acceptable and nor is 55,593 over the 17 days of the recent Festive
period. I would point out that our SIDs are installed on just one
of the 4 entry points to our village and this road is a mere 9 meters
across and 6 meters in places. We have elderly, mothers with
children, horse riders and cyclists all having to go about their daily
routines but having to look out for all this traffic just to stay
safe.
Please
will you take our plight into consideration when making your decision
as to whether the Stonehenge stretch of the A303 should be fixed
or….left as is….Stonehenge Alliance’s preference is a longer
tunnel which will delay matters for a further 10 years and add to the
already costly project. Leaving the A303 as it presently is, will
have a detrimental effect on the economy to the West Country, leave
the World Heritage Site with a main arterial route from London To
Cornwall running through it and local people with continued danger
and poor air quality.
Kind
regards
Janice
Hassett (Mrs)
Founder:
STAG Stonehenge Traffic Action Group