----- Original Message -----
From: Graham Parker (Click to Email)
 
Sent: Monday, December 06, 1999 11:20 PM
Subject: Stonehenge A303 Bypass

Dear Mark,
 
Many thanks for your message and please find below the Document on Stonehenge

END  OF  STONEHENGE  TUNNEL  IN  SIGHT

English Heritage have accepted that a Cut and Cover Tunnel should be made across the front of the Stones along the line of the A303 road. In order to construct this tunnel it is necessary to dig a trench some two kilometers long, probably one hundred feet wide and about fifty feet deep. The soil being dug out will be transported away. A concrete tunnel will be made and when finished the soil will be trucked back and the concrete Tunnel covered.

It is reported that probably five Monuments will be destroyed and it is likely that there will be a permanent scar right across the front of the Stones. The other major problem is that they are not sure what will really be found below the surface once the digging starts.

It is believed that to attack a World Heritage Site with dozens of JCBs will turn out to be 'the United Kingdom Heritage Destruction of the Millennium'.

I originally believed the construction to be a Bored Tunnel, but this was found not to be true. I just could not understand how English Heritage could agree to such a massive destruction of the Stonehenge Site. I therefore decided to investigate the problem.

Having spent most of my career working in Transportation, indeed having completed a theses during my early days at the LSE in London, on the Pedestrianisation of Bromley in Kent, then later having designed the United Kingdom Military Traffic System for mobilization, I decided that I was competent to look for alternative ways of solving the road problem for the Stonehenge Bowl.

I visited not just the Stonehenge Bowl, but an area extending some ten miles in all directions. I visited the archives at Salisbury Reference Library and examined the information of previous road research and plans for Salisbury District. I saw that a Northern relief road had been planned and costed only some three years ago. This ran from the North of Old Sarum, West and rejoined the A303 at Deptford. Looking closely at the A303 to the East of Amesbury it seemed very possible that a road could be made crossing the open arable ground to join onto the already planned Salisbury Northern Relief Road. I decided to get out onto the ground and walk the route.

It came as a real surprise to find that the route from the A303 down to Old Sarum looked a very easy and viable route to join that already planned from Old Sarum.

I then set about preparing a computer map of the suggested New A303 Stonehenge Bypass. i submitted it to the highways Agency in Bristol. I then received a telephone call to send the Map and the detailed planning Document to the Government Office in Bristol. They have now passed it to Halcrow Road Company for Survey and Costing.

However, the startling factor which has come out of this Bypass for Stonehenge is that it can also be utilized as a Relief Road for the city of Salisbury. The highways Agency gave a very rough planning cost figure of about £8 million per mile construction. With the original cost of the Old Sarum to Deptford road being about £6 million per mile I guessed that with inflation the Highways Agency figure could be close. Although the Highways Agency said they could not stand by that figure, and their remark is fully accepted, as some outline figure was needed, moreover as the new A303 length is 16 miles the figure can go up to £9 million per mile before it reaches the expenditure forecast for the English Heritage Cut and Cover cost of £140 million.

Apart from leaving the Stonehenge Bowl untouched, one other outstanding advantage which the New A303 will provide is the fact that Salisbury would never have to have a Bypass built. It has already been done with the New A303. For future Budgets, this could save the Highways Agency at least £100 million plus at some future date!

In spite of writing several times (and as a Member of English Heritage) I have yet to receive any comment or support for the new Stonehenge Bypass from English Heritage. They have to-date spent nearly £5 million on exhibitions, conferences, meetings etc. and whilst I have said that current work on the Cut and Cover project should not be stopped until we see if the New A303 Bypass is viable, one would have thought that English Heritage might have shown some interest in the fact that the new plan that leaves Stonehenge untouched.

  map1  
Graham Parker (Click to Email)

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