Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

[Norfolktolancashire]

Looks like the costs involved in this scheme are being scrutinised

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-w ... e-48339183

[Herned]

Looks like the costs involved in this scheme are being scrutinised

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-w ... e-48339183

Inevitable really, given that the enormous majority of the cost is to do with removing the road from the landscape rather than the pure transport benefit.

Very difficult to attribute a value to that, so the BCR is inevitably a bit dubious

[Berk]

If you take the report literally, it sounds very blinkered.

There are "risks and uncertainty" over a road tunnel near Stonehenge and its benefits are "inherently uncertain"... it "must deliver value for taxpayers".

They've obviously never visited, or driven past the area then.

It was in 1986 that the UK promised UNESCO we would close both the A344 and A303 - as a condition of it being registered as a World Heritage Site. So the NAO don’t give two hoots about our heritage, and protecting its environment, either.

How on earth can they claim it won’t give value for taxpayers?? Presumably neither would building the M1 in 1959 (‘should’ve widened the A5, of course’).

[owen b]

If you take the report literally, it sounds very blinkered.

There are "risks and uncertainty" over a road tunnel near Stonehenge and its benefits are "inherently uncertain"... it "must deliver value for taxpayers".

They've obviously never visited, or driven past the area then.....

How on earth can they claim it won’t give value for taxpayers??

Well, it's going to cost £1.6 billion for a start. That's £25 each for everyone in the UK, the vast majority of whom will very rarely if ever use it. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be built or that it's a waste of money, and I'm certainly not saying they should go for a cheaper but more environmentally and archaeologically destructive alternative, but I don't think it's obvious that £1.6 billion is good value for a relatively short bypass.

[Berk]

Yes, I guess if you read it in context it is a little pricey for a 1¾-mile bypass...

Which then brings us back to what happens with and why are UK construction/procurement methods so expensive.

I feel certain that a private company could negotiate a construction contract more cheaply than the government/HE.

Then again, would Stonehenge suffer if it lost its World Heritage Site status??

[mikehindsonevans]

Looks like the costs involved in this scheme are being scrutinised

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-w ... e-48339183

Inevitable really, given that the enormous majority of the cost is to do with removing the road from the landscape rather than the pure transport benefit.

Very difficult to attribute a value to that, so the BCR is inevitably a bit dubious

Why not just plant a few lines of trees to block the view of Stonehenge from the A303? Green (literally!), cheap (so long as you water them during the establishment phase), stops people from having a reason to slow down. Best of all, literally provides something for the tree-huggers!

Shame about Winterbourne Stoke traffic congestion, mind you.

[alans]

Looking at this project side by side with the £1.6b A14(M) 21 mile improvement in Cambridgeshire it would be legitimate to say this is not good value for a relatively short,1 3/4 mile, piece of dual c/way,but when taking into consideration the environmental case and easing of traffic movement around the Stonehenge area,this must rate as one of those projects that is better to do than shuffle it into the long grass and put into the too difficult bin,only to be resurrected at some time in the distant future,when costs will have risen even further.

This project has been talked about,consulted on,promised and rejected for quite a few years now,it is now at the closest stage it has ever been as regards being built,it is time the project proceeds to construction with minimum holdups and lets get this piece of vital infrastructure built.

[KeithW]

Why not just plant a few lines of trees to block the view of Stonehenge from the A303? Green (literally!), cheap (so long as you water them during the establishment phase), stops people from having a reason to slow down. Best of all, literally provides something for the tree-huggers!

Shame about Winterbourne Stoke traffic congestion, mind you.

Because the importance of Stonehenge lies not just in the henge but the area surrounding it. The aim is not just screening the monument from the road its also about hiding the road, preserving the monument AND the landscape. As for the 14(M) and other recent road improvements such as that from Leeming to Barton on the A1(M) HE went to great lengths to keep the historians and archaeologists on side. Digs on both routes produced a wealth of archaeological data.
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/ ... he-a14.htm
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/ ... he-a14.htm
https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/sites/def ... n_dere.pdf

One of the sites excavated during the A1(M) upgrade was the Roman equivalent of a Motorway Service Area complete with fast food outlets, Inns and a barracks for the light cavalry units which had the job of patrolling the road.

[Chris5156]

Why not just plant a few lines of trees to block the view of Stonehenge from the A303? Green (literally!), cheap (so long as you water them during the establishment phase), stops people from having a reason to slow down. Best of all, literally provides something for the tree-huggers!

Because the importance of Stonehenge lies not just in the henge but the area surrounding it. The aim is not just screening the monument from the road its also about hiding the road, preserving the monument AND the landscape.

It's also worth pointing out that the landscape is Salisbury Plain - not an area known for its trees. A line of trees artificially planted there would be very conspicuous and it's highly unlikely English Heritage would approve.

[jackal]

A couple of less obvious things I picked up on from the NAO report.

First, £53m had been spent on developing this iteration of the scheme to Feb 2019. Technically this is a sunk cost and as such irrelevant to rational economic decision making. But it might nevertheless be politically problematic to cancel the scheme. Grayling got terrible press from the cancellation fees relating to the hard brexit shipping and probably doesn't want a repeat.

Second, this is not the only A303/A358 scheme with a dire BCR. The A358 scheme is at 0.97 (govt's original option - PRA pending). The schemes earmarked for RIS2 all look poor value, with the Podimore and Cartgate GSJs both around a measly 0.5. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these get dropped or (worse) watered down into signalisation or hamburger schemes.

https://www.nao.org.uk/work-in-progress ... ge-tunnel/

[Herned]

Second, this is not the only A303/A358 scheme with a dire BCR. The A358 scheme is at 0.97 (govt's original option - PRA pending). The schemes earmarked for RIS2 all look poor value, with the Podimore and Cartgate GSJs both around a measly 0.5. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these get dropped or (worse) watered down into signalisation or hamburger schemes.

https://www.nao.org.uk/work-in-progress ... ge-tunnel/

Where is the 0.97 figure from? It was at 1.64 in the technical report from the last consultation, with the locally-preferred alternative at 2.08

It wouldn't be the end of the world if Podimore didn't get a GSJ, I'm fairly local and have driven the route regularly for 25 years and never encountered much of a queue there. It's a bit of a shame that the future proofing isn't at Cartgate though, as that is definitely more of a problem

[RichardA35]

....this is not the only A303/A358 scheme with a dire BCR. The A358 scheme is at 0.97 (govt's original option - PRA pending). The schemes earmarked for RIS2 all look poor value, with the Podimore and Cartgate GSJs both around a measly 0.5. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these get dropped or (worse) watered down into signalisation or hamburger schemes.

Well it was ever thus. Without an overriding political imperative to command the dualling of the A303 in its entirety (effectively "ignore the costs"), there just isn't the traffic apart from on a few summer weekends so giving little in the economic benefits section for the region set against some quite large costs.
Now if facilitating access to holidays in the South West from the South East area at school holiday times and the fallout from the Daily Mail letters page from delays on the current route were particular criteria that the scheme was judged against.....

[Berk]

So the fact it provides access to the trunk road network (or an alternative route) from Salisbury/Yeovil/Taunton/Exeter (and by extension, Plymouth) doesn’t remotely figure in the calculations??

[RichardA35]

So the fact it provides access to the trunk road network (or an alternative route) from Salisbury/Yeovil/Taunton/Exeter (and by extension, Plymouth) doesn’t remotely figure in the calculations??

Of course it figures, but there are rules over how to monetise the benefits and a small journey time saving for a small number of cars and hgvs doesn't add up to a great amount.
Again if an A303 dualling policy were in place the economic issues could perhaps be overridden by a brave government.

[Herned]

Of course it figures, but there are rules over how to monetise the benefits and a small journey time saving for a small number of cars and hgvs doesn't add up to a great amount.
Again if an A303 dualling policy were in place the economic issues could perhaps be overridden by a brave government.

The single carriageway sections of the A303 and A358 carry around 25k vpd. That’s a long way past the DFT threshold for dual carriageway - is it really a small number? How many other long distance single carriageway roads have that volume of traffic?

[Berk]

Exactly. It’s yet another example of BCR figures being twisted to support what the budget is “able” to provide. Or not.

[Chris5156]

Of course it figures, but there are rules over how to monetise the benefits and a small journey time saving for a small number of cars and hgvs doesn't add up to a great amount.
Again if an A303 dualling policy were in place the economic issues could perhaps be overridden by a brave government.

The single carriageway sections of the A303 and A358 carry around 25k vpd. That’s a long way past the DFT threshold for dual carriageway - is it really a small number? How many other long distance single carriageway roads have that volume of traffic?

Be wary of using the DfT "thresholds" - their purpose isn't to tell you whether a road needs upgrading, it's to tell you, if you have already decided a road will be built, what standard it should ideally be. So, if your route is expected to carry 25k AADT, you should provide dual two lanes. It doesn't mean that if a road is already carrying 25k AADT it must be upgraded. It doesn't even mean that an upgrade must be to the specified standard; the A14(M) Cambridge-Huntingdon scheme is a mix of D3 and D4 even though its predicted traffic figures will be higher than the threshold for those cross-sections.

25k is very busy for a single carriageway road but here's some others:
A27 Polegate-Lewes: 25k
A21 Pembury-Lamberhurst: 25k
A417 Air Balloon: 25-30k
A46 north of Stratford: 25k

Of those only one is currently slated for dualling.

Exactly. It’s yet another example of BCR figures being twisted to support what the budget is “able” to provide. Or not.

Is it? Care to name any other examples?

[jackal]

It is legitimate to query the BCR for the Stonehenge scheme. 73% of the benefits are heritage benefits, which are 'based on a contingent valuation methodology, assessing the public’s willingness to pay for much of the surface road from the Stonehenge World Heritage Site to be removed'. It's reasonable to make some sort of allowance of this, but the particular level of monetised benefit is rather ad hoc and essentially means HE have bypassed the usual appraisal framework for this scheme. Without the (some might say) special pleading of the heritage benefit the BCR would be a piffling 0.33.

The addition of the heritage benefit explains the increase for Stonehenge BCR since 2014. There are other cases of quite spectacular BCR decrease - e.g. A358 from 6.96-10.04 to 0.97!

Such order of magnitude swings in just four years should disabuse anyone of the notion of the sanctity of the BCR.

[Berk]

To be frank, none of the A303 would be being dualled if we relied on BCR figures alone, judging by that table. Apart maybe from Sparkford-Ilchester.

I’d be most interested to know why the A358 link has slumped so dramatically. Perhaps the team that were pushing for it no longer exists.

But again, it comes back to the notion that sinking the Stonehenge section is a ‘nice to have’, rather than being a firm commitment to improving the environment.

As I already said, the Government promised to remove both the A303 and A344 as a condition of Stonehenge being registered as a World Heritage Site. That promise may only have been made to UNESCO, so without any legal basis, but it was a promise made nonetheless.

If they failed to honour it, UNESCO would be within its rights to cancel WHS status. And presumably you could ultimately end up with people building houses and whatnot close by, like there was before.

Then again, Government promised to deliver Brexit...

[KeithW]

If they failed to honour it, UNESCO would be within its rights to cancel WHS status. And presumably you could ultimately end up with people building houses and whatnot close by, like there was before.

Well no. UNESCO have no legal power when it comes to UK planning laws. The fact that it has been scheduled as an Ancient Monument by English Heritage is the legal protection, that and the fact that much of the land is owned by EH and the National Trust.

The main benefit from UNESCO WHS Status is that it guarantees your site gets on the cultural bucket list. A secondary benefit is that some UNESCO funding is available for conservation work.

In practise many UNESCO WHS Sites, especially those outside Western Europe and North America have been thoroughly trashed but only 2 have been delisted.

In 2007, Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was the first site to be removed from UNESCO's World Heritage list for the simple reason that the the Oryx population had basically been wiped out as the Omani government had reduced the size of the sanctuary by 90 percent after oil was found.

In June 25, 2009 the committee of UNESCO voted to remove the status of World Heritage Site of the Dresden Elbe Valley on the basis that the Waldschlösschen Bridge that was under construction since 2007 would bisect the valley. The 20km long site had been selected as a World Heritage site in 2004. The delisting was preceded by a long and protracted struggle between local Dresden authorities in favour of the bridge and their opponents. The Waldschlösschen Bridge was officially opened in 2013. The people of Dresden voted overwhelmingly in favour of the bridge when a referendum was held.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23825738