Where will the money go then Stonehenge Alliance???

I do wonder what .https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/?page_id=1583 will do with all that banked money from around the world now that it's not needed....will they even come clean??? 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25-html?fbclid=IwY2xjawEdfitleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHXQgHYL9sq1Pj7rsbU0_LCrvBlxHKsHIMQrvUsE9wj63y9zKU6z9Cd-Feg_aem_MC6dhULPQQaw1D4zpOACBQ#annex-responding-to-the-2024-25-pay-review-bodies-recommendations

The above is the link to the present government's announcement on the 29th July, showing everything they pulled from the British people.   Had they put this information out to the voting public/made it easier to find..... before the election and when they secured their place in government on the 5th July 2024, I doubt they would be in office right now....feeling conned!😡

However, if you don't have the time or the inclination to wade through the document, https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/?page_id=1583 have done it for you!  How kind!!!   

They've picked out the bit that refers to the pulling of the 

A303 Stonehenge Project just so they, childishly can....gloat gloat gloat!   

But.....they're still looking for your money folks!!!  This is on their web page this morning.....

.https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/?page_id=1583 

 

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Shot herself in the foot - going forward....

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!!!  

                                                         Phone: 020 7219 7097

                                            Email: rachel.reeves.mp@parliament.uk

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 :

https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/news/wiltshire-council-expresses-disappointment-at-a303-stonehenge-decision 

Wiltshire Council expresses disappointment at A303 Stonehenge decision

Published 29 July 2024

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.

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Presumably this lot are taking all the credit.....what will they do with all the money they've fleeced from around the world....I wonder?

Rachel Reeves has put a lot of short term thought into her decision and she will regret it one day very soon!

If you're going to Glasto this year.....

Can you do us a favour and seek out the children's entertainer - sorry, don't know his name but probably to be found at https://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/areas/kidz-field/ .  Please tell him from me, Dave is still suffering pain and his clavicle (collar bone) has not settled....see this photo from last week.  The man involved will remember that on his way home in his motorhome from last year's Glastonbury, he knocked my husband off his bike while Rat Running through Shrewton at 20 mph on a 6 meter wide road.  It is my understanding that the cyclist has priority over a motorised vehicle with pedestrians having 1st priority.  However, I doubt the guy will be too concerned since he, at the time, said he was "punched" by Dave....I fail to see how this could ever be the truth while Dave was on his way to the ground with damages to his bike and glasses as well as his mental health and well being.  You can read the full story here: https://staga303.blogspot.com/2023/07/2nd-in-command-comes-cropper.html

As it happens, the man may have done us a favour, because even although in some pain, we now live 390 miles away and he probably contributed to our decision to sell up and move on, now living in a quiet village on the borders of Scotland, we don't need to worry anymore about the traffic in Shrewton....sadly, we've left all that behind for the residents who have put up with the rat run for over 30 years, while it steadly gets worse as the A303 passing Stonehenge is no longer fit for purpose and the Project to fix this is continually held up by https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/   They continue to reap money from all around the world from people who have never been to Witlshire and wouldn't know where Stonehenge is, far less knowing why they're donating and to what.  These continual hold ups from this group are to blame for the increased cost and they have, at the same time missed the point of the whole process.

Court of Appeal up held - sadly!

And here's an update of the money SSWHS/Stonehenge Alliance have the ability to collect from people who don't live anywhere near the problem - some in other countries, and who don't understand and follow the lies!  

At 10.50 today 24th May - £104,870.00

This has come in from the A303 Project Director at National Highways:                                            

A303 Stonehenge - Court of Appeal update

On Friday 17 May, the Court of Appeal informed us that Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site’s appeal will be heard in the Court of Appeal.    

https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-05-21-permission-to-appeal-web.pdf

We are hugely disappointed by this decision, which will cause more delays to this scheme as the next stage of the legal process unfolds.  
We will participate fully in any future legal proceedings to continue to present the case for the scheme, working closely with Department for Transport (Dft)

What does this mean for the scheme? 
We still have our Development Consent Order (DCO) in place, so the scheme isn’t cancelled, but this extra legal process will delay the start of our preliminary works and we’ll need to adjust the whole main works programme accordingly. We don’t know what that will look like yet, because we don’t know the extent of the delay. We can’t determine the length of that legal process, and we will need to work closely with DfT and our legal teams to understand what our next steps are.  

What happens next? 
We need to await the date for the hearing, which the Court of Appeal will decide. At the hearing, both sides will present their case and the judge in charge will use this to make their decision. They will either quash or uphold this latest legal challenge. If it’s quashed, that means we’ll be able to go ahead with the scheme, because there would be no other legal route for opposition groups to pursue. If the challenge is upheld, the Department for Transport would decide what to do next, working closely with the project team and National Highways to do so. 

What about the A360 temporary closure? 

This work will continue without any change.  You can find more about this work on the A360 temporary closure webpage (www.a360temporaryclosure.co.uk) provided and updated by Southern and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) who are carrying out this work on our behalf.  

A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down Info​​​​ A303 Stonehenge Project Email:  info@a303stonehenge.co.uk Web:  nationalhighways.co.uk/our-roads/a303-stonehenge/ So! SSWHS need a further £134,000.00 for this appeal - they will get this money from all around the world - from people who don't even know where the World Heritage Site is or have ever visit same!   They have two appeals to achieve this - one for the UK and one for International collections. I'm not going to provide the information on my blog....you'll have to read the link above! Very sad for the people who work tirelessly on the project for it to be knocked back for a third time.....not the mention the increased cost to the tax payer!!

It's Time for Action - apparently......

So this lot are at it again....telling the voting public what they should do, as if we don't have a mind of our own.....well maybe that's a mute point where their followers are concerned and they need to be led by the nose.....here's what they're saying......   

" It's time to take action! Tell your MP/ parliamentary candidates, that YOU WILL ONLY VOTE FOR THEM IF THEY STOP WASTING £3bn++ ON THE STONEHENGE ROAD SCHEME (and £bns on other big damaging road schemes which are making things worse). They should commit to spending on climate friendly transport instead. WHAT TO SAY? 

 https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/act-now/write-to-your-mp/"

Where they've calculated £3bn (if true) means they say the cost has doubled in just over 2 years....is down to them slowing the whole process up using money from around the world from people who don't even know where Stonehenge is to be found or the World Heritage Site for that matter.

When will someone other than STAG take them on, right now Stonehenge Alliance, seem to have the platform to themselves....we had a flurry of interest from the archaeologist's back in December last, see here: https://staga303.blogspot.com/2023/12/at-last-support.html but now they appear to have gone quiet...this is what they said to encourage more support back then..."archaeologists themselves have been overwhelmingly absent from the discourse. While a number of public figures have shared their views on the project, many of the individual archaeologists and heritage specialists who are best-informed on the subject are unable to comment due to factors which include their professional obligations. Meanwhile, many major organisations representing UK archaeology have distanced themselves from the heart of this politicised and polarised debate.   Into the vacuum has stepped the Stonehenge Alliance, whose increasingly divisive and populist rhetoric directly risks the public understanding of archaeology in the UK for many years to come. Rather than being presented with diverse, informed perspectives, the tone of the matter has been steered, almost single-handedly, by this campaign group and its backers.   The role of archaeological intervention in mitigating impact on heritage has been consistently distorted and misrepresented by the Stonehenge Alliance campaign in spite of persistent requests by archaeologists to tone down their rhetoric."   Hello!...where are you now?

More hyperbole on their Facebook page where they talk about campaigning for 3 generations....I work this out to be at least 66 years...Stonehenge Alliance.....your campaign is not that old - on research I see your group were constituded in 2001 and my calcs say that's just 22 years!!!  

Then we have to come back around to the main subject of traffic and the A303 causing rat runs through local villages....here is our take on this on their F/b page: 

"Do any of the present 9 who have 'liked' this post, actually live anywhere near the problem? I assume NOT!! The A303 at Stonehenge needs to be fixed by what ever means....it's not fit for purpose causing huge rat runs through local villages on roads as narrow as 6 meters wide with no pavements or street lighting. As for increasing the rail network....an you lot seem to have costed this out?? How many homes/villages would have to be compulsory purchased to achieve this...presumably not in your costings!!!"

See this comment : " our infrastructure and roads need investment also. This stretch is dangerous, overburdened by traffic it was never designed for, and as a result causes misery and enhanced emissions for both users of the road and the villages who are used to avoid the traffic. The project should have been started in 2019, the inflationary increase in costs is directly attributed to this farce of an organisation who have forced delay.

I'll be happy to see Stonehenge return to it's grassy landscape, without standstill traffic parked next to it, whilst also benefiting from a road that can handle the volume of traffic required to use it.

This country needs to progress it's transport links, it can't stay how it is." and further discussion here: https://www.facebook.com/search/posts?q=stonehenge%20alliance&filters=eyJyZWNlbnRfcG9zdHM6MCI6IntcIm5hbWVcIjpcInJlY2VudF9wb3N0c1wiLFwiYXJnc1wiOlwiXCJ9In0%3D

My thanks for permission to allow to this comment from SHA's Facebook page:Isn't it about time some people started getting annoyed about the vexacious stuff like this that Stonehenge Alliance persist in attempting to ram down our throats. You've now finally got prominent archaeologists up in arms about the litany of falsehoods perpetuated by this organisation which is nothing but a quango. The current MP, and the electorate he represents should be allowed to make their own minds up, and not be swayed by these kind of threats. Take note: the Stonehenge WHS didn't come into existence until 1986, when the trunk road that passes East/West across the area had been in existence for 8 decades and more. All alternative plans for this section of the A303 have been comprehensively examined for more than 30 years, and what is proposed is perhaps imperfect, but this £3 billion figure (if correct-which I doubt) would be considerably less if Stonehenge Alliance had been willing to enter meaningful discussions with Government Agencies, but chose not because they stated "we have NO common ground".

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