Double whammy for road

By Sarah McQuillen, Salisbury Journal, 13 July 2000.

RESIDENTS of Countess Road, Amesbury, hardly knew whether to laugh or cry this week when two separate announcements on the same day brought a promise of a traffic panacea and the threat of a whole new gridlock nightmare to come. The Highways Agency said that Countess Road roundabout will get its longed-for flyover, taking east-west traffic on the A303 over the top of Countess. Moments later, English Heritage confirmed the new Stonehenge visitor centre will be sited at Countess East, bringing an extra 1.8m traffic movements per year to the A345.

Countess Road residents' group member Mike Rudkin said: "We are left expecting the situation to get worse, not better. "All the traffic going into the visitor centre will have to cross all the traffic on the A345. Even with all of the West Country traffic taken away, it still leaves us with a massive problem. "On a busy summer day, there could he 250 cars and 30 to 40 coaches coming and going every hour. The Highways Agency had no choice but to go ahead with the flyover - thev knew that without it, the whole area would grind to a complete halt."

John Turner, Amesbury Town Council's representative on the Secretary of State's Stonehenge working group, welcomed both announcements. He said: "The flyover is long overdue. We have been asking for it for years and have heard all sorts of excuses. It's about time something was done about it." He also hailed English Heritage's decision to delay the opening date of the visitor centre for at least three years as "'helpful and realistic". English Heritage had been inviting private sector bids for the visitor centre contract, with the aim of opening in 2003. But none of the bids met the required standard and English Heritage will now put off the proposed opening date to 2006 at the earliest. Meanwhile, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has agreed to pay for English Heritage to acquire the land at Countess East on which it wants the visitor centre to be built.