A MOVE by the government to revoke planning permission for a tunnel on the A303 near Stonehenge has been criticised by a Dorset MP.
The controversial scheme, which forms part of the larger eight-mile dual carriageway project at the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down, aims to alleviate traffic around Stonehenge which often forms a bottleneck.
It ran into roadblocks in June last year as the newly-elected Labour government said it agreed “not to move forward with projects that the previous government refused to publicly cancel despite knowing full well they were unaffordable”.
And now, despite planning permission being approved previously, the government is planning to revoke the development consent order (DCO).
Should the permission be revoked it would mean that if any future government wanted to proceed with the project, the whole process would have to start from the very beginning once again.
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MP Simon Hoare (North Dorset/Conservatives) has written to the Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander (Swindon South/Labour) to let his feelings be known about the plans.
The Labour government put the plans on ice last year despite £160 million being spent on the project to date Picture: National Highways
The letter reads: “This is a blow to tourism and wider economy of the whole of the south west.
“I understand that your department is proposing to revoke the DCO. As you will have been advised by your officials, it has taken a long time to reach this point in the planning process.
“A future government may wish to resurrect this project and it would be heart-breaking if the process to secure consent had to be begun from the very beginning. Time consumes. Costly.
“Therefore, and while still urging you to rethink your decision and actually deliver the A303 improvements, can a way not be found to legally mothball the DCO?
“There must be a way to do so which would future-proof the project while not writing off a considerable amount of public money spent in getting the proposal to its current state. I would be happy to meet to discuss.”
Taking to social media he added: “If the government will not deliver the project, then it must at least find a way to ‘freeze’ it rather than have to start again.”
Simon Hoare’s letter to Heidi Alexander Picture: Simon Hoare
More than £160 million has so far been spent on the project to date, and estimates had the overall cost of the project at around £2 billion.
The notice from the Department for Transport, said “exceptional circumstances” make it “appropriate” to make a proposal to revoke planning permission.
Across the border in Wiltshire, council leader Ian Thorn described the move as completely unacceptable – “not least because the government has done nothing to facilitate an early discussion on an alternative solution.”
He said: “Our representation to the government will reflect this in the strongest possible terms.
“This proposal disregards years of planning, consultation and investment, and throws away a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve one of the region’s most vital transport corridors.
“The consequences of this decision are far-reaching. It would condemn local communities to continued congestion and rat-running; it would undermine efforts to unlock jobs and investment across Wiltshire and the wider south west; it wastes public money and the infrastructure already put in place; it compromises the environmental benefits that could have been achieved; and it also delays any future progress by forcing the entire process to start from scratch.
“This is not just a setback – it’s a complete step backwards for a region that is severely lacking in government investment compared to other parts of the country.
“Wiltshire deserves better, the south west deserves better, and we will continue to fight for the infrastructure our communities need and deserve.”
People are being urged to have their say over the proposed order, which can be found here, until the deadline of November 21.
The A303 improvements have been identified for years as the only part of the A303 improvement’s that have been ignored by Governments of all colours over decades, and in the process have wasted Hundreds of Millions of tax payers money providing nothing!!!!! Do not let the current government funding effort to provide better roads for that part of the A303 be wasted, put the approved Plans and Funding ‘on ice’ as is. All of the Local and Government MP’s et al should then come together and ‘as one’ body fight for the improvements to be restarted and completed within this Parliment.
Can this MP please remind us of the evidence he gave at the hearings and what the decision from five independent planning inspectors was in response? His arguments were ineffective then and haven’t got any better.