12 June 2006
Dear Robert,
Thank you for your
letter of 11 May about the A303 Stonehenge Improvement Scheme
and the new Visitor Centre. I understand your concern about
the increasingly adverse impacts on the landscape and communities
around Stonehenge and, more widely, on the economy of the
South West region.
As I am sure you
know, following a large increase in the estimate costs of
the Published Scheme (the bored tunnel) for the A303, Stephen
Ladyman established a cross-government steering group last
year to review the options to ease congestion. The public
consultation, including on the bored tunnel, closed on 24
April and the steering group will produce a report to Stephen
Ladyman in the summer setting out the results of the consultation
exercise and the detailed assessment of short-listed options.
You ask that the
Stonehenge project is identified as a candidate for financing
by road tolling. The Stage 1 Report of the Stonehenge Improvement
Scheme Review, published in January 2006, did as you rightly
say consider the possibility of the bored tunnel option being
funded by tolling. Unfortunately the conclusions of that
Review were somewhat less positive than you suggest. The
review concluded that tolling of the sort used for example
on the M6 Toll Road was unlikely to be suitable as there
would be considerable environmental and archaeological constraints
to finding a suitable location for constructing a toll plaza,
and traffice would divert from the A303 onto less satisfactory
roads.
The same problems
would not neccessarily apply if there were an open road toll
under which charges were collected electronically or paid
by other means. To do so electronically would require large
numbers of vehicles to be fitted with the right equipment.
The Stage 1 Report concluded that this would not be feasible
owing to the high number of occasional users (including foreign
vehicles) on the A303. Similarly prepayment, payment over
the internet or by telephone or at designated payment places
(as in the TfL London congestion charge) would be unsuitable
given such use of the road.
You refer to the
conlusion in the Report that if some national road pricing
system was introduced a toll charge for the tunnel could
be more practicable. While the Government is committed to
taking forward the debate on national road pricing, implementation
is still some years away. The Government is currently engaging
with Local Authorities and industry to work through and trial
road pricing schemes and technologies before we decide how
these might be implemented on a wider scale.
The Steering Group
Report expected in the summer will need to advise on the
options in more detail. You will I am sure understand that
I cannot be more definitive in advance of that Report but
I can assure you the Government fully recognises the importance
of finding a practical way forward on the A303 Improvement
Scheme which recognises the unique importance of this World
Heritage Site as well as the wider economic impact on the
South West.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dear
Prime Minister
Stonehenge Road
Improvement & Visitor Centre
As
the local Member of Parliament, on behalf of my constituents
and on behalf of the majority of this country’s heritage organisations,
I write to urge your support for the Department for Transport’s
preferred published scheme for the A303(T) improvement project including
a tunnel, plus the English Heritage Visitors Centre project sponsored
by DCMS.
The economy of the
whole of the South West of England, especially the very important
Tourism sector of the economy, is being damaged by the continuing
indecision over the funding of this very significant scheme – which is recognised to be of European, national, regional
and local significance. Of course, our local economy in South Wiltshire
is particularly hard-hit. So is the wonderful landscape of the Stonehenge
World Heritage Site and so are our local village communities, suffering
increasingly from traffic, air, noise and light pollution caused by
traffic congestion and regular gridlock conditions on the A303(T)
and on adjoining local roads.
The irony is, that
after so many years of enquiry, consultation and consideration by
literally dozens of Ministers, plus the personal attention of three
Prime Ministers including yourself (when I asked for your help in
The House as long ago as July 1997) we are now closer to agreement
than ever before between the majority of heritage interests (led by
English Heritage) and local interests (led by Wiltshire County Council
and Salisbury District Council), plus the DCMS and the proposer of
the scheme, the Secretary of State for Transport.
This scheme is unique.
It is also expensive – in
two senses. First, because the sum of money is inevitably
so great that it is too big to be borne by a regional, let
alone a local, road budget. Secondly, because taxpayers faced
with many other local public spending needs find it hard to justify
the demands of a project that is certainly of national and international
significance when measured against local needs for hospitals,
schools and homes. Ministers in spending departments also find it
impossible to identify sufficient funds within their departmental
budgets. So, if progress is to be made on a scheme that most of us
want to see succeed, an exceptional manner of funding will have to
be authorised. I believe this can only be achieved with the agreement
of yourself and The Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Please will you
identify the Stonehenge Project as an early candidate for financing
by road tolling? That way the Government could allow the complex scheme
to proceed, possibly as a public/private partnership, hypothecated
against future road and tunnel tolls.
Last month I suggested
this way forward to Ministers at DfT and DCMS. In view of the announcement
this week by the new Secretary of State for Transport of his
determination to press ahead with road tolling, please will you give
urgent consideration to my request?
I will copy this
letter to the Secretaries of State for Transport and Culture, Media
and Sport, to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and to other interested
parties.
Yours ever
|
