So! at last, I've received a response from the PM following my letter to him on 31st July 2024 the same day as I wrote to The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves and sadly, her department have not seen fit to respond as yet and we have to assume this is it!
There was no surprise in the reply, and of course the letter is not actually from the PM's office at all. In reading the letter, I was very tempted to correct some of the punctuation to allow it to scan properly. I doubt very much that the PM or the Chancellor have the time to read my blog and therefore would have missed the bit on my post about Rachel Reeves shooting herself in the foot : https://staga303.blogspot.com/2024/07/shot-herself-in-foot-going-forward.html
This bit here......
"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!!"
I've managed to unearth a letter from Salisbury's MP John Glen to the Chancellor of the time.....
The Rt Hon George Osborne MP which explains all. Although early on in the campaign, it confirms and belies the present chancellor's statement that "The A303 scheme was ultimately set to deliver low value for money" etc 4th para in their letter. The letter confirms that the project would in fact pay for itself and some. Sadly, with all the delays and procrastinations, the letter is somewhat out of date and costs have risen exponentially as a result.
So! the long term benifits of achieving a cohesive upgrading of the A303 where single carriageways punctuate this direct trunk route to the West Country, have been arbitrarily swept aside, citing unaffordability whilst competely discounting the financial benefits for the future!!!
DO THE SUMS MS REEVES!!!!!
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