Ten minutes on the A303

The A303 is a road which we normally use around four times a year, with the total number of trips probably now being in the small number of hundreds. A road we know quite well. A road which has been much upgraded in the fifty years that we have known it.

So my eye was caught by a half page advertisement in today's Guardian telling us about the latest episode in the Stonehenge saga - although you would not know that unless you looked fairly carefully. 

There was a reference number TRO10025. Google tells me that it is a sort of fishing line sold by Shimano - the people who also do parts for bicycles. Add a few more search terms and I find my way to reference 1. From there to reference 2. From there to reference 3. Where I am confronted by a regular avalanche of information, including submissions from all  manner of people and organisations, some private, some public. From there to something called the Examination Library. From there to something called 'A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down: TRO10025: 1.1 Introduction to the Application'. Back with the fishing tackle.

At this point I think it is time to visit Ordnance Survey, gmaps not being much good at this sort of thing, and turn up the view included above. At least I now know the stretch of road they are talking about upgrading to dual carriageway, that is to say the stretch to the right and left of the roundabout in the middle of the view. An upgrading which involves a two mile tunnel past Stonehenge, which must be slated to cost a small fortune.

But in the ten minutes allocated to this matter, I completely failed to find a straightforward - say 10 page - summary of what this project is about, how much it is going to cost, how it is justified and where it is now at. All I have learned is that the project is alive, probably well, has probably already cost a large number of millions of pounds and is still a long way from being 'shovel ready' in the catchy phrase of our leader. A chap who is quite good at the catchy phrase, even if one has one's doubts in other departments.

So timed out.

PS: don't think I am cut out to be a road planner, the sort of planner who has to wade through all this stuff, maybe to read some of it, maybe even to write some of it.

Reference 1: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/.

Reference 2: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/projects/south-west/.

Reference 3: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/projects/south-west/a303-stonehenge/.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=hindhead. Previous ruminations on Stonehenge. Do not be put off by the search term.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=hindhead. Another expensive project involving a tunnel, this one on the A3 at Hindhead.