Vocal Voices

It could lose its world heritage status if the proposed tunnel is constructed in its current form.

All it does is tunnel under the existing A303 for 1.8km directly opposite the henge. Its entrances and exits are ultra modern and physically alter the landscape of what is already a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The road is already there so there is not much that can be done about it, but to improve its function by ruining a unique landscape seems silly in the extreme.

I do not know why Highways England do not bite the bullet and build a tunnel from the end of the Amesbury bypass to the junction of the A360. It could be built deep enough to leave the upper layers intact for further archeology and if it was a straight line it would be further away from the henge.

£s billions can be thrown at tunnels under London so Crossrail can exist, but we penny-pinch on a unique, one-off, prehistoric monument some 5,000 years old. Its construction is so special that scientists and engineers still cannot figure it out. They have tried replicating some aspects using modern day knowledge and materials and none of them have been a roaring success.

Leave the place in peace.

Well, driving the route on a reasonably frequent basis, something needs to be done about the single-carriageways bottlenecks on the A303, not just at Stonehenge but also between Sparkford and Ilchester. Plans for both have been debated since at least the 1980's and believe me, getting to the current stage of "preferred routes" to ease the congestion in these two areas is an achievement in itself. The Amesbury junction with the A345 is OK but the junction near Stonehenge with the A360 is awful.

The topography of the Stonehenge area (including the village of Winterborne Stoke which is at the western end of the scheme) doesn't lend itself to any easy fixes. An extended tunnel (of around 3.5 miles from memory - I can't find the exact details or proposed costs on-line now without wading through oceans of Government bumf on the subject) was deemed too costly and actually more intrusive to some of the surrounding features.

Whatever they eventually decide, it won't be built in my lifetime, WM, and possibly not yours ....

The tunnel from Amesbury to the A360 would be 5km and it would allow retrofitting of that terrible junction. Yes, the topography is tough, but so what, it was the same for Crossrail.

The current proposal is only a part fix and is tantamount to vandalism. It anything the whole A303 needs upgrading with lots of bypasses and dual-carriageway sections. The last time I used it, many years ago on the way to Weymouth, it was nothing more than the country's longest tailback - national speed limit, but we were lucky to do an average of 20 MPH.

This was on our local news tonight. On the one hand we have the Highways Agency and the National Trust saying how wonderful it will be, then the Stonehenge Trust (?), who are the architects excavating sites nearby, saying it will destroy their digs.

I'm with the architects, it is pretty much vandalism

The cynic in me also thinks that with the road in a tunnel, people will no longer be able to see the stones from the road - they will have to pay to travel round them in those pod things. Money talks!

Kaz wrote:The cynic in me also thinks that with the road in a tunnel, people will no longer be able to see the stones from the road - they will have to pay to travel round them in those pod things. Money talks!

Good point, Kaz, but the tunnel will also stop the rubber-neckers, who are a major part of the traffic problems on that section of the A303.

As Ossie says, there is no easy fix, which more than likely means doing things half-arsed. Will we do the right thing in our lifetimes? Probably not.

The sad thing is that nobody is going to be happy with the outcome of this one.

If we do what is planned it will be vandalism. If we do the right tunnel it will be wasting taxpayers money. If we do nothing the situation will continue to get worse and everyone thinks that they have a worse traffic problem which could do with the vast sums of money that tunnelling this kind of road would cost.

It's a zero sum game. Everyone loses.

Do a proper tunnel, do the job right. If the Swiss can drive tunnels through mountains this is doable.