Will the Stonehenge tunnel really happen?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2023
- Looking at the off-and-on again proposals to upgrade the A303 past Stonehenge by building a dual carriageway including a 3.2km tunnel, stretching back 30 years and again approved yesterday (14th July 2023) after a legal challenge had put it on hold.
Filmed late June on a very hot Saturday.
I probably didn't adequately explain in the video that the whole area is covered in ancient monuments and such, and further away there's no easy bypass route.
Music: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Calypso 
Наука
Should reopen and upgrade railways in the region
😂😂😂😂😂
I agree but that will never happen in this country.
No. Wouldn't work.
A303 is used by tourists travelling to Devon and Cornwall. And they need cars to get around on holiday whilst there. They are not going to ditch the car and go by train.
they already are, The Mid-Cornwall Metro project,
People don’t want to travel by train on holiday and find they are stuck in their country cottage in the middle of nowhere. They need to take their cars with them.
Stonehenge is a very important structure. It should be moved to the N.E.C. in Birmingham for its own protection.
knock it down and then reassemble it in a park in London. Much more convenient for Tourists.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. 😈😈😈
How about regents park as a second option?
@@geoffwright9570 I was thinking across the road from Buckingham Palace so the King can see it everyday😂😂
🤣
It will be exactly the same as when they upgraded the A380 in Kingskerswell. Local residents kicked off, petitioned, demanded it was axed saying it would ruin their view, noise etc. Then when it was built "oh isn't it wonderful, I no longer have standing traffic outside my house for 8 hours a day, everything is so much more peaceful" - Yes they actually said that!
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
@@electro_sykes It's all going underground where the current road is.
@@devon896 what, undergound under an empty field sounds so bizarre and stupid. Even @JayForeman would agree with this comment 😂
@@electro_sykes The tunnel is to eliminatethe road safety hazard of cars slowing down to gawk at it from what is supposed to be a main national highway.
@@davidhand312 well build it elevated then.
meanwhile, the west of England mainline is single tracked with passing loops between Salisbury and Exeter
You don't want to encourage improvements there, or you'll end up with HS3 from London to Plymouth!
@@AlexanderWright1wouldn’t be a bad idea tbh. London to Penzance in
@@AlexanderWright1 give give give give give give
I often think that for the price of HS2, many terrible lines could be upgraded up and down the country - and some old removed lines reinstated. Cheaper, less environmental cost and pollution, and might even affect more people
@@HarryInEdi a significant upgrade could have been done to the existing Chiltern Main line increasing capacity between London and Birmingham plus electrification then huge amounts spent on both the ECML and WCML to straighten out curves etc.
Beautifully shot as always, but the pacing on this one was really good as well, didn't feel rushed at all. Nicely done.
Make a roundabout out of it that'll cause a stir!
Love that, then negotiate down.
Like start by building a cola fire power station then end with a wind turbine
they should at least add a quick mini-stonehenge on a roundabout - missed opportunity!
I remember reading a article in which a journalist was singing the praises of the view of Stonehenge as he sits in traffic and how it makes him feel like that start of his holiday. For the rest of us that live and run businesses in the area it is just about tolerable in winter and a nightmare in summer. Can't wait for it to be finished, if I live that long.
Hear! Hear!
WCC should break it up for stone chippings and build a better road!
ha! looking at 10/15 years easy. by then it'll be scorched earth, brimstone and fire on these isles the way things seem to be going at the moment!
Was it in The Guardian? I think I read it, I was gobsmacked. All the journo considered were Londoners travelling to Cornwall on their hols, not the number of people killed and injured along that stretch of road each year, too many staring at Stonehenge instead of the traffic in front of them. There's often 2-3 deaths per year along there.
Thanks Martina. £1.7 billion for a couple of miles of tunnel? That's crazy prices! Think of the upgrades they could do with the railways in that neck of the woods for that money!
The UK has the most expensive rail tickets in Europe. None but a minority are interested in railways in the UK.
Which wouldn't fix the road traffic problem, but yea it is crazy money!
We just want more trains and we aren’t getting enough 😭
bored tunnel as opposed to cut and cover is a much more expensive way to go about it, however it does seem like silly money to begin with - considering engineering exercises of this scale never undercut their budget but instead fly straight past it. probably just tipping over the 2 billion mark! Considering crossrail was budgeted at 14.8 but actually cost 18.8 billion, which comparatively speaking sounds like a bargain!
@@leoja4578 as well as train quantities the stations need to be in the right place too and have a reasonable direct route, this is often a major problem (often thanks to Beeching!). One example, my sister lives in crediton nr Exeter, I live near Aldershot. A quick look shows the train to Exeter takes about 4 3/4hrs! And then there's the trip to crediton.
Driving to crediton takes about 3 1/2hrs, sometimes 4 if heavy traffic, if major problems maybe 4 1/2, in 15+ yrs of going there I don't think it's ever taken me 5hrs!
I agree though that trains need more investment to take some of the traffic off the road, but it's not the whole answer.
Btw, a clear run to crediton only takes 2 1/2hrs, but that's only happened twice AFAIR! Lol
This was great. The A303 is one of my favourite roads and the Ilchester bypass is the most wickedly fun bit of it. I love Stonehenge, but I think arguments respecting ancient travellers' and contemporary drivers' enjoyment do not justify the bottleneck or vehicles rumbling past as in a safari park. Consider the A3 at Hindhead. Arguments might have been made for a distant origin and enjoyment of ancient and modern travellers looking at the natural wonder of the Devil's Punchbowl, yet the Hindhead tunnel bypassed that; and I imagine very few people regret it. Perhaps there should be a vote on this tunnel - those content to drive very slowly and see the stones, and those content to know that the reason for this tunnel is some ancient stuff nearby
Makes you wonder just what may be discovered in this new digging into old ground?
Thank you for the video; the script is excellent!!
Great informative video! Thanks!
What I think is also important to consider (and I think I heard this from Paul and Rebecca Whitewick) is that with the age of the route not quite clear it may well be that stonehenge was meant to be seen and meant to be in close proximity to a road of sorts so it would be disturbing the ensemble to just go and remove the road altogether
This video is very interesting as I always use the A303 to go from Yeovil to Winchester I always wondered how this project was going to turn out and yes its always very busy at this part of the A303 I once was in a traffic jam for 3 HOURES!!!! so hopefully this project will fix this.
really enjoy your videos
5:40: "I suspect that nobody will watch this video."
RUclips algorithm: And I took that personally.
Great vid , thanks.
great video martina 👍
I hope it goes ahead, fed up sitting in traffic seeing people not paying attention looking at a pile of rocks. If you’ve seen them once they are just the same every time you pass
Tbh even if they just put screens down one side of the road it’ll be an improvement
you could upgrade the parallel west of England railway line for £1.7bn and reduce road traffic that way!
It's all good saying that, the trains are great themselves already, although electrification and redoubling of the line wouldn't hurt. Unfortunately, a lot of holiday traffic is generated thanks to the last mile problem: sure, the train will take you to Devon / Cornwall whatever, but now you need to get some bus or some non-existent public transport to get to your holiday cottage. Oh and what about day trips. As a single person I would like to test the ability to go to Cornwall and leave the car at home, using only public transport to reach major attractions. But do you want to do that with the screaming little ones? Don't think so
So true!
@@aidanfell4297 yeah, public transport isn't that great for famillies
I watched it! And I enjoyed it
An excellent presentation.
What would be the expense and difficulty of building a 'Stonehenge Bypass' many miles away to be used as the Trunk Route, thus leaving the present road past Stonehenge with less traffic and serving local communities.??
I suspect all the people living in any proposed area would throw up even more planning complaints.
The other problem is that whole area is covered with prehistoric remains. Any new route is going to disturb some of them.
Even cheaper solution. They could easily widen the A303 without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway. Just need to buy up some of that land and then you can use built one of the Carriageways on it. Then the existing road can be converted into a carriageway for the other direction.
@@electro_sykes People probably object to that because it will increase noise notably in Stonehenge itself. Fast cars are louder than slow cars.
@@u1zha so, build sound barriers.
It has been suggested but English Heritage (or Heritage England?? - what ever they are called these days) won't allow it.
EH have done as much as they can to stop people seeing the stones without paying e.g. at the enquiry into closing the A344 it also wanted to close ALL the footpaths in the local area - the Chairman told it in no uncertain terms that was not going to happen.
EH has also been pulled up by Wiltshire Council for putting out illegal 'No Entry' signs at the western end of the closed A344 (the road closure traffic order allowed non-motorised road users and 'authorised users' to continue to use the road, the no entry signs would have meant cyclists etc. could not use the road), EH replied that they helped 'administer the area', Wiltshire Council replied to this along the lines of 'Remove the signs or else' - EH can deny this happened but I was involved and saw the emails!
Great video. Let’s revisit this video in five years time, shall we?
Don't hold your breath.
"Just one more lane bro"
So crazy idea here, build the dual carriage way tunnel to take most of the traffic, and downgrade the surface road to a B road, so you can use it if you really want to see Stonehenge but it’s not as busy as it currently is
Surely then everyone wins? But obviously that’s too sensible for a government plan
They could stick a toll on the tunnel to claw back some costs.
build the tunnel for those needing to travel and haulage but leave the current road inplace and make it one way 20mph so it would be a single road with the other lain then used as a huge lay-by so drivers can tern off before the tunnel to still view the stones.
this keeps everyone happy and far safer.
When they build the tunnel, if they need a bit more hardcore, there's some big stones they can chop up just nearby.
That's why they built Stonehenge, their forethought was amazing.
The latest statement is a bit vague on tunnel detail. Wonder if they'll offset the tunnel ends by c1km to manage the impact both of construction & of headlights in each direction. And wonder if they'll tweak the World Heritage boundary to include things found since it was drawn long ago.
This road hasn’t had any upgrade or improvement in 30 years. Great to now see the works at Podimore and just hope the tunnel goes ahead this time. To any objectors I would say that they could stick a mural of Stonehenge in it in order to pacify them!
Mike Pitts, archaeologist. Brilliaint.
The problem is greater than just the single carriageway issue. While many UK drivers do not know how to merge in turn thus creating greater traffic problems, the issue is made worse by the fact that Stonehenge represents a permanent accident on the side of the road where holiday makers will rubberneck to look at the stones and sometimes take a quick photo all which makes the traffic back up even more. If the bypass is built well, it should be easy for drivers to be able to continue on the old route and enjoy the views of Stonehenge if they want without affecting commercial traffic. Each bottleneck represents a point of additional pollution as heavier vehicles have to accelerate again after each slow-down. The main reason for the cost of this bypass is that it is a government contract which traditionally will be higher cost than if it were privatised as a toll section encouraging some people to stay on the original 303 to save the toll cost. Not sure why UNESCO would remove its world heritage status if a bypass is built, that doesn't sound correct to me
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
Would you know if the preparatory archeological work and the changes to the local roads has started yet?
imagine what else they could find digging out all that
A solution to this is 40 years overdue, it is no better now than when I used to sit in traffic in the 70's as a kid. Why is a tunnel such an issue, perfect solution to me. Can they start on the Blackdown Hills after this?
I remember the A303 had a junction right next to Stonehenge and it was an absolute nightmare. Sat for hours in jams
Was plenty of accidents too
A tunnel is the best option for traffic to flo and visitors to Stonehenge will have a tranquil experience
The best solution is to do exectly nothing with the road. The more it congests, the more drivers will avoid it.
For visitors of Stonehenge, revive the old railwayline from the mainline at Amesbury Junction and extend it towards the site. Lightrail can do the job from Salisbury.
Unfortunately you can't avoid it if your like me and live I the west country, I could take a blinkered view like yourself and say just bulldoze stonehenge and the problem goes away
@@colin4850 Sorry, I didn't mention bulldozing the site. Otherwise, lets agree to disagree.
They will simply use local village roads instead.
Shrewton is particularly badly affected by traffic avoiding the A303 at Stonehenge. A couple of years ago, one bank holiday weekend, over 18,000 vehicles were recorded passing along the road that goes through the heart of the village.
Shrewton is not the only community affected in this way. The Woodford Valley also suffers, as does Stoford.
@@r.h.8754 I'm afraid I have to change my opinion, if I should have one at all. I never realised this.
@@colin4850 I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
BRILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIANT and it cant coe soon enough
Time to build the tunnel and do the job properly
Yep, I think there a good argument that the tunnel is to short, extending it shouldn't add that much to the cost of the scheme.
@DavidKnowles0 I believe that the problem with that idea ( given British tunnel standards ) is that any longer would require a vent in the middle. It rings a faint bell: not sure but I believe thst this has been discussed over the decades.
Constructing the tunnels will provide relief for some years, but looking further ahead when individual cars will be considered an inefficient means of transport and trains will move large numbers of people quickly, I'd also work toward upgrading the rail service.
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
@@electro_sykes You obviously don't know the area, the land either side also contains barrows and sites of archaeological interest, the time it would take to survey, dig and analyse these would take decades.
344 removed purely for EH to make more money.
Just needs another carriageway way alongside existing. Tunnel is expensive and a safety risk, only suggested so EH can stop people seeing the stones. Put a dome over it then they can make it summer solstice several times every day - and correct as built because it isnt now!
Those objecting are from away from here. Protesters camp is already an eyesore, so just do something for the sanity of those who live here.
Can understand that the locals would want to keep a small road going by the Stonehenge but the main A303 road with all the traffic that just wants to pass by a tunnel sounds like the perfect solution to me instead of a dual carriage way where the current road is..
But then again this is Britain and we let the small fringe moan and moan and take legal actions to stop progress and we end up in a mess instead.
You say that but the area is of massive religious and historic significance, many people don't understand its not just the stone circle there are a lot of burial mounds all around the surrounding countryside, many sites, possible hundreds.
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
@@Metis1337 I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself and its nearby historical sites, for future generations.
Walt Disney Resort in Orlando will surely be interested.
Think of the poor residents of Winterbourne Stoke, they have the A303 running right through their village! They deserve a by-pass NOW!
I'll only believe it when I see the TBM turn up on site.
I just hope if they use a tunnel bore method that no archeological finds are missed :(
the other alternative is to upgrade the London Waterloo line from Basingstoke to Yeovil Junction dueling it and 3rd rail keep the old single line to Exeter with more passing loops . making people use the trains and making it cheaper would be more viable. But as A A303 user because i worked at Boscombe Down i know that the tunnel is the only option.
Dueling? ⚔️
Try DUALLING!
The bottle neck it will relieve will only kick the congestion down the road. It is not in the Highways England schedule to dual the carriage from Mere (Chaddenwick hill) through Chicklade to the section just past Cow Drove so the delays will be just the same if not longer in those parts . i am a HGV trunker that drives this route on a daily basis and i have spent so many hours stuck that it is quicker to go down the B3089 to Salisbury and up to Solstice Park to avoid it completely but this is not a road for these tall heavy trucks .
This reroute should have happened in the 1980's and if you look at the countess roundabout it was shaped for a flyover when it was reshaped then.
I heard you say your piece at the end. While the stones are largely unaffected by the 'progress' of man, you can hardly say the same about the A303, which I suspect didn't look like that hundreds or thousands of yers ago. It's amazing to think that the south West Mainline was reduced to a single track in places around there and some stations closed, with the closure of the whole thing considered even tough it was not far from this road and would no doubt remove traffic from it. Bury the road and bury the rest of them while you're there; I don't see why us civilized air-breathing, ground level wanderers soul have to breathe all those engine fumes.
So many single tracked lines that could be upgraded with minimal cost to the public purse and environment - but I think the government much prefers grand engineering projects. It’s better for growth optics.
@@HarryInEdi I think car horns and engines should be as loud in cars as outside and if that doesn't discourage people, the exhaust should be vented inside the cabin, then we'll see how much people love their cars.
@@SirKenchalotso what do you do with electric vehicles?
@@davidhalfacre7220 Abandon the idea as we'll run out of enough Lithium to cost effectively manufacture all the cars we'll need to replace existing numbers.
The impudence! "Save Stonehenge" should be reserved for those who WANT the tunnel. That road has to go.
Should divert the A303 via Salisbury and provide a bypass for Salisbury as well. Likely cheaper than a tunnel.
That was proposed! Guess what - the rich objected.
Do It!!!!
Beneath Stonehenge there are further incredible heritage historical remains of times gone by. Tunnles etc, what's to happen to these?
I just want good rail infrastructure man
John Benjamin, poet lauriet said in his clip, Branchline Britain from the sixty that in 1970 when the roads are clogged up & everyone is flocking to the southwest people will ask how was this allowed to happen, closing down branch lines.
Its long overdue just get it done!
the A334 was removed to remove access to the site of the stonehenge festival site and to limit public access to the stones now you can walk around it not too close though
Vital road projects such as this one at Stonehenge, A417 Birdlip Bypass and the A13 Ripple Road Underpass will eventually be forced through by socio-economic realities. In any case, I think that systemic changes in planning (cutting costs and eliminating unnecessary red tape) will come to fruition once western nations realize how far they're falling behind the rest of the world. This will be especially the case in a multi-polar world that is now re-emerging. Global competition will force change IMO.
Looking at that massive queue of cars at 00:30 ... all the people in those cars could fit on a single double decker bus.
As always with traffic, the problem is not the roads but what roads are designed for
Similarly all the comments reckoning that everyone in cars could just get a bus or train could be replaced with one comment, yet they still come
@@martinalooksatthings Sorry, I didn't provide enough clarity. My point is that a long queue of cars looks like lots of people are affected. Yet the number of people in a queue is often so small that they could fit in one bus. Thus spending billions to solve an optical illusion seems wasteful.
No matter how much Highways England says this tunnel is needed, how it will solve the area's traffic and bring economic and environmental benefits.. know it is a lie. Highways England is a racket with the sole job of finding money for contractors, not for properly managing the road network
Why not a generous bypass? for example in the north of Salisbury.
because people north of salisbury don't want it.
@@DavidKnowles0 understandable. I hope the UK will find a solution.
A cheaper solution would be to make the existing carriageway one way, with two lanes, and then drill a tunnel for the other carriageway.
Cheaper, as you only need to bore one tunnel, and you'd still be able to see Stonehenge from the road, albeit only from one direction.
I like how you think
Once you have set up to dig a tunnel the added cost to cut 2 of them isnt twice the cost of digging one.
@@marvintpandroid2213but it's still more than the cost of turning the existing road in to 2 lanes one way
@@harrywood6502 True, very true but the plan is to remove all of the traffic from the landscape, not half of it
@@marvintpandroid2213 And tunneling only in one direction wouldn't even mean that only half the traffic would be visible, as an extra lane would only open up the road to more cars which will inevitably come once there is space for more cars.
It has already started,bringing in electricity for the TBM,road closures for 3 months.
Just build the road, with or without tunnels. Looking back at some images, the stones have been lifted, reconstructed and restored etc. so not exactly as our ancestors left them, and I doubt much of the original landscape has survived.
The only way to build a cut and cover tunnel in a timely fashion would be to destroy the archaeology that’s undoubtedly there.
If they painstakingly catalogued everything (as they should) it would take decades!
Bored tunnels going into the side of the hill at Winterborne stoke is the best option then going deep.
I am suprised that the Stop Oil Protesters havent stoppped the traffic along there. The ammount of traffic standing still on that section, pumping out all that pollution. If there was a tunnel, the air quallity in the area would improve, which would be better for everyone.
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations. Or they can even toll people using the A303 to encourage use of the tunnel
Why don't they just loop further out from Stonehenge with a standard dual carriageway? As Stonehenge seems to be on a slight hill it might still be seen but it would be much further away. Whilst the road would be longer surely it wouldn't be as expensive as tunnelling?
Surely just putting up a tall fence would stop people slowing down to look at the Henge. That's a big part of the problem IMO
I think UNESCO are against that
@@GrahamWalters That makes sense. Bit silly tho
The alien archaeologists will be confused when they find the tunnel.
I was wondering what a train line from ludgershall towards westbury would do for the traffic, but then I looked at maps and saw there was a big old military range in the way.. So I guess that's out of the question. And I guess there's already some rail closeby :v
Nope, the line from Ludgershall went to Cheltenham Spa via Marlborough, Swindon, Cricklade and Cirencester. It was closed in 1962. If you drive on the main road going through Collingbourne Ducis you can see the trackbed to your right heading northbound. As for your suggestion, the Wessex Main Line and the West of England Line has you covered.
Bring back the A344!
Cant wait for it to start and I grew up in the area and will be living near it.
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
I'm utterly shocked that with the UK's absolute fetish for roundabouts that they don't just build a giant roundabout around the whole site.
The should have built the two way tunnel before when it was cheaper. Building infrastructure which has been carefully thought through is never a bad thing.
It was never going to be cheaper. The difference is a combination of inflation and over optimistic early estimates.
No chance. There will almost certainly be a legal challenge so the only chance would be a change in the law. So I will continue to bypass this section or travel in the middle of the night. This scheme survived Prescott's axe in the late 90s so should have been built then when the cost was a tenth of what it is now.
Great video. I’m amazed National Highways haven’t proposed a massive roundabout around Stonehenge given there can’t be much money left after yet another utterly pointless re-branding exercise and one that is technically incorrect (‘National’ only applies to ‘England’). Living near the A417 ‘Missing Link’ (Cotswold escarpment) I have little faith in NH getting anything right that pays some regard to the environment.
Before people start criticising things they know nothing about, they should perhaps educate themselves on what national means.
@@911HRW well, I used to work for National Highways until last year so I do have some insight. Probably a lot more than you. So does Wales have a National Highways? Scotland? Northern Ireland? Perhaps you’re the one that needs to be educated in the geography of the United Kingdom and the logic of a UK government funded organisation describing itself as ‘national’ that only covers England.
@@911HRW I actually think you’ve mis-read what I’ve written. I’m criticising National Highways for using the word ‘national’ (see ‘technically incorrect’ above). Unless that’s what you’re challenging in which case, good luck winning that argument.
@@tasty_fish Perhaps Google what “national” means, then come back to me. I’m fact, ill save you the time. “National, relating to or typical of a whole country and its people. Last time I checked, England is a country. Think of a “national” as a person, National, someone who officially belongs to a particular country, again, England is a country.
I’m guessing you were booted from them and now hold a grudge. Sad.
2 billion pounds could double track and electrify the whole rail route to Exeter. We constantly upgrade roads and then get frustrated when there are more people driving as a result, and more traffic. The only solution to bad traffic is public transport.
If you can persuade people to use it.
It takes the bus 30 minutes to do a journey I can do in 15, I can then shop at multiple locations without having to lug all my shopping with me - I can return to the car to off-load.
When I am finished I can drive home at my convenience without having to wait for a bus to turn up.
Remember this is a rural area, the whole of Wiltshire has fewer people in it than Croydon, Sutton and Kingston combined so providing public transport for everyone is almost impossible.
@@r.h.8754 Know what would pursuade people to use public transport? Good public transport. You can do your journey faster in the car right now because car infrastructure is heavily subsidized. This tunnel would be a further subsidy. As for it being a rural area, are you talking about farmers? Because other than actual farmers, villages can be well served by public transport. Instead, the money is spent building roads and roundabouts and traffic signals, etc for cars.
@@lifelinee7672 The bus uses the same roads that I use in my car so where is the car subsidy? No extra roundabouts, no traffic signals...
why was the A344 removed?
At the behest of English Heritage so it could build its ghastly Visitor Centre and also stop (or try to) people seeing the stones without paying.
The original A344 used to run between Andover and Warminster but was gradually buried beneath the A303, after the section between Shrewton and Heytesbury was downgraded to become the B390 the only section of the A344 left was that between the A303 at Stonehenge Bottom and the A360 at Airmans Corner crossroads, this was closed in 2013.
@@r.h.8754 Want you to pay to see it, you can still see Stonehenge from A303 as you drive past. Surprised they didn't put a toll on it, 😂😂
@@electro_sykes EH tried to get all the local footpaths closed and also stop the free access enjoyed by local residents.
Where's Swampy where you nees him??
I feel if the road route is as old as stonehenge it should be kept, but they should still provide an underground bypass for the majority of traffic
Bury the road, and turn the current one in to a combined footpath/cycle route.
Maintain the surface route, but not for cars
@@RyanJ_Do you think many cyclists cycle along the A303?
😂😂😂
It might be turned into a track, just like the A344.
@@deang5622 I used to go to work along it many years ago
It all depends on certain people getting certain incentives if you catch my brown drift.
Went past on Friday and back on Sunday .Terrible traffic both ways and must be a nightmare living there.I must admit running a new 2 lane carriageway next to the existing road and turning that into the new 2 lane eastern route ,with some judicious landscaping would seem to be as good as anything ,much cheaper and quicker than a tunnel?
I live in Shrewton, the traffic is a nightmare. I used to live in SW London the traffic here is much worse - not so much the volume of traffic but the behaviour of those who seem incapable of driving in a civilised manner.
Absolutely excellent video as always Martina. Though please don't be pessimistic at the end and say 'no one will look at this'... your channel has grown INSANELY quickly and your recent Amsterdam video has over 100k views. Many other people (such as I) made videos pretty regularly for about 5 years with absolutely no growth or traffic!
At the time of writing that I was in editing hell, and aware of the many other videos on the subject with very low view counts...
@@martinalooksatthings A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
@@martinalooksatthings I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
As soon as the politicians figure out a way to get their cut from the project it'll go ahead.
I've clicked something; what do I do now?
I'm not sure
The longer they dither about it the more it's going to cost to build the thing.
If they can put a tunnel under London for the Cross-rail route, without London falling into the hole. Then, it must be possible to put a tunnel under Stonhenge with any damage to this important historical landscape!
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
and london has a lot of tunnels under it, so it would have already collapsed if anything
You forgot to mention that the ambient light will destroy the sunrise ritual.
I think I intentionally didn't mention that
They had no problem with making an eyesore visitor centre and shuttle bus road.
So true! The Visitor Centre is a desecration of the landscape, it should have been 1/2 mile further east screened by trees. When the architects were challenged as to why it was built at that location they replied 'it's what the client asked for' - I have a picture of the area pre-Visitor Centre and one after the Visitor Centre was built; it comes as quite a shock to see the damage that has been done to the landscape.
Regarding the shuttle bus, originally there was a 'Land train' - three 'carriages' towed by adapted Land Rovers. As originally built the carriages had access on one side only, the idea was that the train would drive in and then reverse into the area where the passengers would board and alight...until somebody pointed out you can't reverse a three-carriage land train!😵
The carriages had to be returned to the manufacturer for accesses to be fitted on the other side as well and more roadway laid so the train could circle and draw in to allow passengers to alight on one side and new passengers to board on the other side.
The land train didn't last long before it was replaced by buses chartered from Wilts and Dorset, the train carriages have been left to rust somewhere and an occasional modified Land Rover is sometimes seen around the area,
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
I do wonder... so how are people getting to the site to visit it if not from that road? I've never been there, so I'm not sure how it works. But say they did tunnel it, is there some type of connecting road scheme to allow people using the road to access it? Or busses to use to drop visitors off?
There is a visitor centre to the west from which you can walk or take a shuttle bus to the stones.
If you know how to comment on RUclips you know how to use google, if your question was a cry for attention......HELLO EIRINYM!
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
Ofc, every proper highway in every 1st world country has a local road serving slow moving vehicles and providing access to any places of interest that exist along the route from pre-highway times.
The budget will probably be £2 billion by today's inflationary standards, £3 billion by the time its completed if it ever gets started this year. They should get permission from the farms to just lay down new roads near it and then make it a dual carriageway. But as we've seen not only in this country, but also in America, laying down more lanes equals more traffic, thus more lanes in the future
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
I don't understand the opposition - surely a tunnel should improve the view and be better for the environment? The Hindhead Tunnel in Surrey has been quite a success with fewer accidents, smoother traffic and the Devil's Punch Bowl has been allowed to return to nature. The original road has become a walkable nature trail and the residents of Hindhead are surely relieved to not have traffic ploughing through the middle of their town.
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
They dont want to build a tunnel under stone henge, because that's where the pandorica is
Doctor Who: Thats ok, we will just move it to some Museum back in London😂
I'm no expert in this, by a long shot, but I drove this road from East to West three times at rush hour in May and every time it bottlenecked around the stones and suddenly opened up again after they were out of sight. It looked very much like a rubbernecking situation to me - the way traffic starts to move suddenly with nothing out in front and no obvious hold-up. I suggest a cheap fix of putting up some green, eye-level barriers along the carriagway to obscure the view of the rocks but still keep it natural looking. That way the road can go back to being a road and not a slow-moving observation deck for tourists.
You're spot on, however it's not always the cars that are the biggest cause of the slow-downs. Quite often it will be coaches from the cruise ships in Southampton that will slow down in the dip, even if they're going to the visitor's centre! The other problem with the fence idea (which has been suggested more than once) is that it will get damaged either by locals who don't want that either or by tourists & druids who will consider it an inconvenience to their view when they park along that road.
I always avoid the A303 whenever possible. It's a bloody nightmare. Packed solid with grockles.
The tunnel will never happen. Nimbys will see to that.
How about building a flyover going over the top of the stones?.......
Perfect, I can't wait for a toll booth for this tunnel to pop up and have it be monopolised. Get a prepaid account for it and end up paying a £60 charge due to not paying a toll despite having money in the prepaid account. *cough* Tyne Tunnel 2.
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
Nobody is mentioning that the problem with any tunnel is the disturbance of the ground - Stonehenge’s wider heritage site is over very very large area, full of earthworks big and small. The protesters want a deeper tunnel that starts and ends far further away.
I think if it does go ahead, the tunnel should be tolled with all money going towards maintenance of the tunnel, paying off the construction loans & most importantly, to fund future preservation of Stonehenge itself, for future generations.
Why don't they just move Stonehenge further away from the road?
Don't really see how a tunnel well under ground is worse than the current situation. Just build it, it's needed. What ever World Heritage says doesn't make Stonehenge any less valuable.
A303, they could easily widen that without even having to touch the Stonehenge. Look at all the land on the other side of the road. Plenty of room for a dual carriageway.
@@electro_sykes its not about the land its about the landscape ...the road causes a visual pollution around the landmark