Journalism at it's worst......

Feelings are running high about this article from Tanya Gold in The Daily Telegraph July 28th - Tanya is a regular column writer in a number of broadsheets: The Guardian, The Spectator and the Mail and....

My letter to The Daily Telegraph....Sir,

https://staga303.blogspot.com 

https://www.facebook.com/StonehengeTrafficActionGroup    

These are links to my Facebook Page and blog, running since 2013 with over 60,500 visitors – all about the A303 Project. It provides correct and up to date information, along with many subjects all regarding the A303 at Stonehenge…..it will tell you just why there is a continual queue at the Stonehenge section of the A303, and it’s NOT the reasons provided in Tanya Gold’s piece on Wednesday 28^th July.  Apart from all the inaccuracies, and lack of research, The Daily Telegraph should be ashamed to have put this article to print being the worst kind of journalism.    Today's journalists have so many tools at their fingertips but some fail to do their research properly and use plagiarism ie…..the easy way out but sadly, often sparing in fact and truth!!!    Journalist’s of old must have turned in their graves reading the article with it’s lack of accuracy, detail and county knowledge….Avebury is some 23 miles north of the “bottle neck” at Stonehenge that she talks about, so we presume she means Amesbury.    And just for the record……The “bottle neck” is NOT caused by “rubber neckers” taking a quick view of the monument in passing, but is caused because the road is unfit for purpose.  This blog is where one Tanya Gold should have visited to get – correct information and she may just have found out a few other facts as to why the road is……FACT: unfit for purpose causing rat running through local villages.     

FACT: Over 169,000 vehicles accessed London Road, Shrewton - just 6 meters wide in places with no pavements, during August 2019 and this figure is set to increase as more people take to “stay cations” in the West Country – the right thing to do.   FACT: 55,593 vehicles accessed London Road in Shrewton during the Festive period in 2019 20^th December to 5^th January!   These figures are taken from SIDs and just in case Ms Gold does not understand the term SID……it stands for: Speed Indicator Device or “Smiley Face” to her.    Ms Gold would have done well to have found all this out before she submitted her article and perhaps payment in this case could not possibly have been justified!

This bit amused me too, where I see in her article that Stonehenge – The Monument, has suddenly developed eyes….I do wonder what she means in the last line in her first paragraph?!   She obviously did not proof read  before going to bed or perhaps she was half cut! 

As the Team Leader for Community Speed Watch in our village, we regularly register numbers in excess of 500 vehicles in one direction during the hour we are street side and all of the forgoing is…… the reason for the “bottle neck” at Stonehenge, and not as she puts it in her poorly presented article!

Regards

Janice Hassett

Founder of STAG: Stonehenge Traffic Action Group

This from a Shrewton resident.....

Stonehenge, sloppy journalism and outright ignorance. Tanya Gold’s article (Daily Telegraph 28^th July) is both ignorant and badly researched as well as containing numerous inaccuracies. We do not know on what experience she bases her views but to muddle “Avebury” with “Amesbury” smacks of ignorance and sloppy journalism. To imply that the “..bottleneck on the A303 near Avebury…” slows people down “Because people slow down to see Stonehenge.” indicates how infrequently she travels that route. It is the dual carriageway into a single lane that causes the westbound traffic to slow and as the site is not visible until well past the Amesbury (not Avebury) roundabout people slowing to take in the view does not cause the congestion.

The vast majority of motorists traveling in both directions do not “..want to go slowly and see Stonehenge..”, they want to get from A to B, and anyone who wishes to avoid the congestion knows the rat runs to use. Unfortunately, that rat run traffic ends up going through villages such as ours, ill equipped to take it.

Tanya Gold quotes a well known archaeologist saying the plan is “head-bangingly stupid”. Her article is even more head-bangingly ill informed and sloppily researched. Another out of area commentator who needs to think before she casually puts pen to paper. Shame on her and the editorial team who approved it.

And this one from our Parish Chair here in Shrewton: 

Dear Sir

Tanya Gold displays a woeful lack of knowledge about the A303 when she states there is a bottleneck on the A303 near Avebury. Had she taken the trouble to look at a map she would have learnt that Avebury is over 15 miles distant from the A303 and that she should have referred to Amesbury.

As for her assertion that the tunnel is a solution to a problem that does not exist I would like to invite her to come to Shrewton on a Friday afternoon. We have to suffer the blight of motorists using our village as a bypass to avoid the traffic jam on the A303, as an example over the last bank holiday weekend over 18,000 vehicles transited the High Street (which is not the main 'A' road through the village and for most of its length does not have any pavement).

Cecil Chubb, the man who gave Stonehenge to the nation, was born in a house on Shrewton High Street. It is time the nation returned the debt and did something for the village in which he was born.