The long-awaited Stonehenge tunnel to carry the A303 beneath the famous World Heritage Site is at the heart of the government’s £2bn plans to transform routes into Devon and Cornwall.
Go-ahead for the 1.8 mile tunnel beneath Stonehenge is central to the Department for Transport’s plans for a new A303 Expressway from the M3 via the M5 to Exeter contained in its first ever five year Roads investment Strategy.
“There is only one way to fix this: a bored tunnel to take the A303 away from the surface." DfT
This strategy sets out the government’s ambition for the network over the next five years. The introduction of Expressway as a new class of strategically important trunk road will add to the network with improved and consistent standards and technology and will be rolled out initially in the South West.
“There have long been calls for a new strategic corridor to the South West but concerns about damage to Stonehenge have stopped past proposals,” says the Strategy.
“There is only one way to fix this: a bored tunnel to take the A303 away from the surface. This will reunite the landscape and environment around Stonehenge and will also unlock the rest of the A303 for upgrade to Expressway standard.”
In total six widening over the next 14 years will upgrade the A303/A358 to provide an enhanced corridor to Exeter including improvement to bottlenecks at Taunton and Sparkford.
Improvement will also be see to the A30 across Devon and Cornwall to take this road up to a consistent Expressway standard reaching a far as Camborne.
“I’ve been calling for a tunnel underneath Stonehenge as part of wider upgrades along the A303, a lifeline for businesses in the South West, so I am glad to see it getting the green light.” John Cridland, CBI
New Expressways Smart motorways and will form the backbone of the nation’s strategic road network with a new emphasis placed on being a better neighbour, according to the government’s new Road Investment Strategy published today.
The Confederation of British Industries (CBI) welcomed both trhe Road Investment Strategy and the decision to move ahead with a tunnel on th A303 beneath Stonehenge.
“This five-year strategy marks a significant milestone in our journey towards the delivery of much-needed upgrades to our existing road network, the arteries of our economy,” said CBI director general John Cridland.
“I’ve been calling for a tunnel underneath Stonehenge as part of wider upgrades along the A303, a lifeline for businesses in the South West, so I am glad to see it getting the green light,” he added.
“It is essential now that we see a commitment from all sides to take this programme forward in the coming Parliament, shifting our focus towards delivery.”
The strategy sets out plans to spend over £15bn in the five years to 2020/21 with 84 new schemes added to the programme announced in 2013 and including £900M for so-called cross cutting improvements to reduce the impact of the existing network on communities.
In its first ever five year plan for developing the nation’s highways network, the DfT has set out what it describes as a “deliberately ambitious” and demanding vision for the evolving Highways Agency to deliver in its first five year ”Road Period” .
“We must invest to address today’s issues and also meet our future needs,” says the document. “We are taking a markedly different approach, focusing on longer term investment and planning, underpinned by the step change in funding announced at the 2013 Spending Round.”
Expressways:
Generally dual carriage and built “to be safe and resilient to delay” with grade separated junctions to provide a consistent “motorway quality journey”.
In total the plan says that 127 new roads schemes will come forward in this first Road Period, describing it as “the largest programme of investment for a generation”
Importantly the strategy will see the introduction of a new class of Expressways routes on strategically important trunk routes to create consistent “motorway quality” journey alongside an uninterrupted Smart Motorway network linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Yorkshire.
And alongside these planned schemes, the 2040 vision for the nation’s network also includes funding for a series of eye-catching new “Strategic Studies” into ambitious projects such as a Trans-Pennine tunnel, the Manchester Orbital, an Oxford to Cambridge Expressway and options to improve the congested south west quadrant of the M25.
The Road Investment Strategy sets the Highways Agency challenges across the whole of its national network and breaks down investment into six regions. Looking around the regions we see investment plans: