Speeding through a tunnel at Stonehenge, but crawling through South Somerset. The future on the A303?

The consequences of building a tunnel at Stonehenge and a garden town between Yeovilton and Babcary.

The £1.6 billion plan to bury a new dual carriage way section of the A303 in a tunnel at Stonehenge (Western Daily Press, February 8) may or may not come to fruition, but if it does I doubt it will improve journey times to and from the south west.  I suspect any time saved by a road tunnel at Stonehenge will be lost due the proposed new “garden town” of 15,000 homes straddling the A303 between Yeovilton and Babcary.  It will bring with it thousands of additional car owners many of whom will, of necessity, need to use the A303. 

If both plans are realised road traffic will hurtle westward past Stonehenge only to come to a crawl 40 miles down the road as citizens of South Somerset’s new “garden town” join the A303 while going about their daily affairs. 

Meanwhile, according to the 2017 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey from the Road Surface Treatments Association there is a national backlog of pothole repairs costing £12.6 billion.  Furthermore, the RAC Foundation reports almost 3,500 council maintained road bridges are sub-standard and £934 million would need to be spent restoring them.  Rather than use £1.6 billion trying to “reconnect the World Heritage landscape” at Stonehenge, surely it would be a better use of taxpayers’ money to spend it on helping maintain existing roads.