We’ve been asked “where is the video pushing for a short tunnel mentioned recently”. It’s here and it’s well worth a look. It’s a very professional production but you may well feel it’s contents are the opposite. How about the claim “If designed well, the tunnel would bring huge benefits”? Is it professional to say that but not to spell out the massive damage it would also cause? And is it professional to enthuse about any tunnel at this stage when the route and exit points haven’t been decided upon? Doesn’t that signal the opposite of professionalism, an agenda to support the Government’s declared intention whatever the heritage damage?
Maybe most telling of all is how remarkably similar this new video is to the previous one about removing the A344. The graphics, text and music are so similar the new one could easily be seen as a continuation of the earlier one. There’s a reason, we suspect. The removal of the A344 had few downsides and was almost universally welcomed. Now the construction of a short tunnel is being presented as part of the same beneficial process.
It is not. It is quite separate and involves massive damage. You may therefore suspect that the “part two” video employs a subliminal, psychological trick, something one might expect from a down market advertising agency, not from heritage champions. As “Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site Friends” observed last Tuesday, it is “unashamed propaganda foisted on a public evidently believed by HE to be gullible“. We can also add our own view that this claim by Historic Englend that they are working “to make sure plans for the tunnel protect and enhance the Stonehenge World Heritage Site” is actually a fib, for they know and we know a short tunnel cannot protect the World Heritage Site. Doesn’t Britain owe itself and the world better than fibs?
A short tunnel WILL involve digging an approach trench similar to this inside the World Heritage Site. How come neither the Government nor the heritage triplets who support their intention have published an artists impression something like this? Why isn’t it depicted in their glossy video?
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18/02/2016 at 08:12
georgenash
It will keep Wessex Archaeology/Cotswold Archaeology busy unless there is complete fairness and transparency in the tendering process.
18/02/2016 at 09:25
Jim Mitchell
If this is the Hindhead tunnel (?) in Surrey, I well remember the chaos caused above ground when it was built. Admittedly the Hindhead/Devil’s Punchbowl area has benefited hugely by its construction.
What seems to be lacking are detailed plans showing the exact route of the tunnels (Long and short) and the position of the portals. The problems of the Long Barrow roundabout and the Winterbourne Stoke by-pass need to be addressed first as drivers at busy periods will still have the pleasure of a traffic jam but in a tunnel without even the stones to look at to pass the time.
Would it be possible to Photoshop this picture onto the proposed portal entrance(s) in the World Heritage site?
Jimit.
18/02/2016 at 09:35
heritageaction
Yes it’s Hindhead. As you say the portal positions haven’t been decided or, might we speculate, they pretty much have but not revealed. Until they are it’s not possible to photoshop Hindhead onto them – and you can bet there will be little effort to do so by EH et al, just as there wasn’t the last time.
20/02/2016 at 08:38
solsticepilgrim
I believe that governmental plans for a tunnel at Stonehenge amount to nothing more that the use of a ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’ and a very expensive one at that! You are quiet right to point out that a tunnel will cause immense damage to the WHS.
It’s also worth noting that 2.9km tunnel would form a ‘V-shape’ (similar to one running under a river) meaning that it would have a low point or sump directly under Stonehenge Bottom. A mechanised pumping system would therefore need to be used to keep it dry in wet weather and during the winter. This is in addition to the entrance portals, lighting systems, above ground dual carriageway sections and graded junctions.
What Stonehenge really needs is a Park & Ride (P&R) situated at Countess East. All English Heritage would need to do is purchase a few more shuttle buses and utilise the land at a Countess East which was purchased for the unrealised Visitor Centre plans back in the early 2000’s. A P&R at Solstice Park retail park would be another idea here if the land at Countess East wasn’t available. The shuttle buses could drop people off at either the King’s Barrow ridge or at Stonehenge Bottom and provide visitors with the enhanced option of arriving at the stones via the Avenue. People could then exit via the visitor centre (gift shop and café) before getting another transit bus back to Countess East. A large amount of A303 traffic is Stonehenge related (coming from A34/M3/M25 etc.) and traverses the A303/WHS when it doesn’t really need to happen. A P&R system would have reduce these numbers and be fairly straightforward to implement.