Stonehenge tunnel scheme scrapped by government
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jq8pxg0weo
By cancelling this project, Rachel Reeves has just shot herself in the foot if she thinks she's helping the economy out of her own created black hole which has just emerged on her 24 day watch!!! Ms Reeves has not looked at the wider picture and gone against what she said in the Labour manifesto, that she would not be making any rash decisions which are short lived and today, she's done just that!!!
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Whilst this blog was mainly a campaign to stop rat running through the nearest village to Stonehenge - Shrewton, it's not all about rat running, but also about opening up the west country, including Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, by unlocking the traffic bottleneck past Stonehenge on the A303, where it can take up to 2 hours to travel 3 miles....clearly, Ms Reeves has never sat in that queue!!! By progressing with this now over costed project - all down to Stonehenge Alliance's continued whingeing and their lies - tourism alone would allow the project to pay for itself, but sadly she's just killed that and Devon and Cornwall will suffer as a result. Has she ever thought about the truckers who have to sit in the queue and who can't rat run, when all they want is to deliver the goods on board and get back to their families. Of course, she's just another person who sits at a desk in London and makes decisions for the rest of us and is apparently entitled to do so!!
And now to the cancelled project....In removing the present A303 from the World Heritage Site by going underground, this would have opened up the whole area for all to enjoy the fawn and flora, cycling, riding, walking and in turn keeping people healthy and fit. It's a well known fact that the A303 at Stonehenge is regularly over capacity by 86% and local villages suffer hugely by rat run traffic. I always quote the SID figures for August 2019 that in just one month 169,000 vehicles travelled down London Road in Shrewton, which is just 8 meters wide and 6 in places, with a left hand bend and no pavements. There is a small community on London Road who need to get down into the village for school, doctor and shops but the whole of the village is grid locked especially every Friday and Saturday through out the year and this traffic increases come school holidays making Shrewton a very dangerous village indeed. I hear today that the figure is over 3000 per day as I write this. The news will also affect house buying and selling in Shrewton....watch for a glut of local people leaving, but sadly getting a reduced price for their properties!
Here's what Cllr Richard Clewer head of Wiltshire Council, has to say on yesterday's news :
Wiltshire Council has today (Monday 29 July) expressed its disappointment at the Government's indication to cancel the A303 Stonehenge tunnel project.
Cllr Richard Clewer, Leader of Wiltshire Council, said: We are extremely dismayed and disappointed at the Government's decision to cancel the A303 Stonehenge tunnel project. These improvements are needed now to ease traffic congestion on the A303 and reduce traffic in our communities, and also ensure economic growth in Wiltshire, unlocking jobs and investment in the wider south-west region.
It has taken many years of lobbying and working closely with partners, including National Highways, to bring this major infrastructure project to Wiltshire, and so it is a huge blow to get to the stage when construction is ready to begin, only to have this taken away from us at this late hour.
There has already been £160m spent on this project, and cancelling it now wastes that huge investment, including the work to run a power supply up the A360 to the tunnel site. There is currently no viable alternative to the tunnel on the table. It would return the Stonehenge landscape to something like its original setting and allow local communities greater access to the ancient stones and the surrounding World Heritage Site.
We will remain committed to this project and will continue to work closely with all stakeholders to try to bring this project back to Wiltshire, to reduce rat-running in our communities, to reduce journey times to the wider south-west, to boost economic growth in Wiltshire, and to unlock jobs and investment across the region.
Rachel Reeves has put a lot of short term thought into her decision and she will regret it one day very soon!
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