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A320Driver wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 08:28
I can’t help but feel that the ship has sailed on this one. The time for protests and petitions was over the last 3 years with the public and statutory consultations. I suspect/hope that the government’s mind is made up already and wonder if the scheme will be ‘announced’ in the budget, whenever that may be!
Agreed. I don't think a last minute petition is really going to make much difference, like you say; 'the ship has already sailed on this one'. Every conceivable alternative has been considered and what we have on the table is the 'best fit' after literally years of discussion. The only thing that can really stop it now is lack of funds / a judicial review? IMHO the main issue is the western approach cutting scarring the World Heritage Site (WHS). I would like to see scheme amended to include an extra / relocated green bridge along the line of the A360. This would help cover the cutting and could easily be done.
Stonehenge tunnel potential extra green bridge crossing the A360 bridleway
I have grave fears for the future of the remaining A303 upgrades if Stonehenge is scrapped. Without this bottleneck sorted there's no point in dualling the rest of the remaining single carriageway sections. Furthermore, the A303 may even be detrunked. Scrapped road improvements in the past have resulted in trunk roads being handed down to local councils. A40 in Oxfordshire for example was detrunked a few years after the major GSJ schemes were withdrawn.
Something else worth bearing in mind is the A358 improvements between Ilminster and Taunton. This may also be for the chop as it is also reliant on Stonehenge being sorted.
How would you like your grade separations, Sir? Big and complex.
There is a suggestion that the Salisbury-route could make a reappearance as an alternative, cheaper route.
Whilst not great, it’s better than nothing - and would also allow Salisbury to have a decent bypass too.
I am keen to know, however, what the supposed “unknown unknowns” that've been uncovered are. They can’t be archaeological, but are supposed to relate to ground conditions.
But it must be a hell of a lot to add an extra £1bn to the bill. Any ideas??
Given how much even bog-standard road schemes cost nowadays, how much cheaper is a longer route via Salisbury going to be, not least considering the long delay to the scheme. At least the £2bn or so got you a nice tunnel...
Why on Earth did they ever route a trunk road along here? Whoever came up with numbers must have foreseen problems when they sent the A30 a different way.
Maybe we should have upgraded that over the years instead.
Truvelo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 19:18
Something else worth bearing in mind is the A358 improvements between Ilminster and Taunton. This may also be for the chop as it is also reliant on Stonehenge being sorted.
Is it? It warrants dualling on the traffic levels today. It is the main route for south Somerset and west Dorset towards Bristol and the north, as well as being very important for local traffic. It carries 30k+ vehicles every day
Truvelo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 19:18
Something else worth bearing in mind is the A358 improvements between Ilminster and Taunton. This may also be for the chop as it is also reliant on Stonehenge being sorted.
Is it? It warrants dualling on the traffic levels today. It is the main route for south Somerset and west Dorset towards Bristol and the north, as well as being very important for local traffic. It carries 30k+ vehicles every day
At the moment it isn't trunk and the proposals are by HE. If the A303 isn't improved then there's no incentive to trunk the A358 and spend huge amounts on it.
How would you like your grade separations, Sir? Big and complex.
M5Lenzar wrote:Why on Earth did they ever route a trunk road along here? Whoever came up with numbers must have foreseen problems when they sent the A30 a different way.
Maybe we should have upgraded that over the years instead.
I don't know. We'll have to ask some druids. The A303 is an ancient road that has existed long before anyone could have conceived of it being tarmaced over and use by automobiles.
Truvelo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 20:54
At the moment it isn't trunk and the proposals are by HE. If the A303 isn't improved then there's no incentive to trunk the A358 and spend huge amounts on it.
Oh yes, that's a very important point... this news/speculation might also explain why the Sparkford-Ilchester segment is still undecided. Very depressing
But again, what can they possibly have discovered about ground conditions near Winterbourne/Stonehenge/Countess roundabout that hasn’t been extensively surveyed already.
And why would it cost £1bn extra to fix it?? Someone’s having a laugh.
Probably worth repeating from last December in light of the recently reported developments on cost. HE will get the team and scheme they deserve unless the proposed risk transfer is amended.
jackal wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 19:41
No UK tier 1 contractors have bid for the contract. Highways England are standing firm on their fixed price approach, and have three bids from continental joint ventures.
Funnily enough for those with a long memory, this approach is almost exactly the same one that led to cost increases in the ECI period and the project being dubbed uneconomic and withdrawn the last time. It was similarly competitively priced with risk transfer before the design was carried out.
Berk wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 22:48
But again, what can they possibly have discovered about ground conditions near Winterbourne/Stonehenge/Countess roundabout that hasn’t been extensively surveyed already.
And why would it cost £1bn extra to fix it?? Someone’s having a laugh.
Surely they must have know that it was going to be an expensive undertaking to tunnel at this location? What I find interesting is the so-called 'Southern Route' surface bypass which HE England put forward a the start of the consultation was dismissed so quickly. It runs entirely outside of the World Heritage Site (which is something the protestors always wanted) and with some cleaver disguising such as green bridges etc. might have been doable? Perhaps, they will go back and look at this again along with a Salisbury bypass? I think it is now likely that the tunnel is dead in the water or in this case boggy ground!
I wouldn’t support it in t he normal course of events. It’s certainly not direct, will require additional fuel consumption, and may not be free of archaeological artefacts.
The only way I would support it is if the direct route cannot proceed at all (for the 20. time).
The cost has risen 10-fold since 2002. Granted, the scheme is much more expansive now, and includes a longer tunnel.
But if environmentalists got their way, and the tunnel became a mile longer, it’s pretty certain the scheme would never be built at all.
Berk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 14:25
But if environmentalists got their way, and the tunnel became a mile longer, it’s pretty certain the scheme would never be built at all.
Berk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 14:25
But if environmentalists got their way, and the tunnel became a mile longer, it’s pretty certain the scheme would never be built at all.
