Highways Agency

Progress

Progress

Since the last newsletter, we have held an exhibition at the Punch Bowl Hotel, visited by around 1500 people, and both the Project Advisory Group and the Wider Reference Group (your community representatives) have met with us twice to discuss the scheme.

From the exhibition we received 240 written comments, of which about 72% were supportive of the scheme and wanted us to get on with it quickly. However, concerns were also expressed about some of the scheme detail and about traffic impacts that might occur. This newsletter includes our responses to the following two key issues that were raised:

• Closure of the existing A3 around the Devil's Punch Bowl;
• Changes to local traffic movements as a consequence of the scheme.

We also report, in the centre pages, on scheme changes which have been made as a result of comments received. These concern:

• Boundless Lane Junction;
• Impact on Tyndalls Wood;
• Access for equestrians and pedestrians across the new road at High Pitfold;
• Measures to reduce the noise and visual impact of the new road.

Appointment of a contractor team

We explained in the last newsletter that we were going to appoint a contractor team before the scheme design had been finalised.

On 18th March we invited Tenders from the following consortia:

• Amec Capital Projects with designers Halcrow Group Ltd
• Balfour Beatty Major Projects with designers Mott McDonald Consulting Engineers
• Costain Limited with designers Scott Wilson and Symonds
• Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd and Bouygues Travaux Publics with designers Mouchel Consulting Ltd and Donaldson Associates
• Mowlem/Nishimatsu Joint Venture with designers Brown and Root Consulting All of these are large construction companies and design consultancies, with extensive expertise in tunnelling. The Tenders are due to be returned in July and we plan to appoint a contractor team in September.

All of these are large construction companies and design consultancies, with extensive expertise in tunnelling. The Tenders are due to be returned in July and we plan to appoint a contractor team in September.

The next steps

Over the next few months we will:

• Carry out more traffic surveys to refine the traffic model to ensure it is capable of analysing alternative traffic management strategies in more detail;
• Discuss with Surrey County Council, Hampshire County Council and the local highway authorities what strategies should be investigated for the local roads affected by the scheme and how these strategies might be implemented and funded;
• Undertake consultations with community representatives on these possible strategies;
• Report back on these issues in September.

Once the tender process is completed and we have appointed a contractor team, there will be further consultations as we develop the scheme in greater detail. We can then publish draft Orders and an Environmental Statement in late Summer 2003 and, if necessary, hold a Public Inquiry in 2004.

We are still working to a target of having the tunnel open by 2009.

Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

In each newsletter we plan to include an article about some aspect of the environment around Hindhead explaining what makes the area special. Last time we explained about the designations SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and SPA (Special Protection Area under the EU Directive on the conservation of Wild Birds) that relate to the Devil's Punch Bowl. In this issue we have an article written by Dave Symonds of the Surrey AONB Unit about the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which includes the area around Hindhead.

The Surrey Hills was one of the first landscapes to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1958, conferring upon the area national recognition and protection in respect of its special landscape quality.

AONB designation provides the basis for a system of protected areas in England and Wales through which our most important landscape heritage can be safeguarded for the benefit of this and future generations. The primary purpose of an AONB is to conserve and enhance natural beauty, which includes flora, fauna and geological as well as landscape features.

Stretching across the centre of the county from Oxted in the East to Farnham and Hindhead in the West, the Surrey Hills AONB covers an area of 415 square kilometres, and embraces three of Surrey's Countryside Character Areas, namely Wealden Greensand, North Downs and Low Weald, each with its own distinctive character and quality.

Although close to London, the Surrey Hills contains a remarkable range of changing scenery, unspoilt beauty, diversity of landscape and wildlife, old buildings, pretty villages and hamlets, and historic towns. This quality of landscape is epitomised by the scenery north of Hindhead, including the beauty spot of the Devil's Punch Bowl, great expanses of heathland surrounding the pretty village of Thursley, and far reaching views to the Hog's Back.

The Surrey Hills remains a wonderful resource for historical, cultural, ecological and archaeological interest, and the Hindhead area in particular is renowned for writers and artists who have been inspired by the rugged beauty of the local landscape. The Devil's Punch Bowl and Thursley's heathlands provided the inspiration for Baring-Gould's 'The Broom Squires', Blairfindie Allen's Moorlands Idylls', Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles', part of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby and much of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poetry.

Like elsewhere in the AONB, the Hindhead Greensand area has been influenced by changes in recent years, including loss of views, loss of heathland habitat, traffic damage to verges and roadside banks, decline in woodland management, increases in visitor pressure on recreational resources, and general decline of local distinctiveness. Key objectives for protecting, conserving and enhancing the local landscape quality of the Hindhead Greensand include conservation and management of heathland, restoration of views and viewpoints, and enhancement of recreational access. Aspects arising out of the A3 Hindhead Tunnel development would provide an opportunity to address these key issues through mitigation proposals, in particular the treatment of the existing A3 corridor. Overall the A3 Hindhead Tunnel scheme could, if sensitively detailed, enhance the visual quality of this special part of the Surrey Hills AONB, whilst providing a platform to implement improvements to habitats and recreational aspects, which are part of the area's rich heritage.

Dave Symonds - Surrey AONB Unit

Changes to the Proposed Scheme

As a result of comments received over the last six months, a number of changes have been made to the scheme. The main ones are illustrated on this plan.

Boundless Copse Embankment

Concerns were expressed that the new road embankment through the Boundless Copse area would dominate views from the east and result in extra noise to properties in a presently quiet area.

To reduce this problem, the scheme has been modified by lowering the vertical alignment of the road, and providing a 4m high earth bund on the east side of the road to hide the traffic from view and to reduce noise levels in the nearby valley.

View larger image 

High Pitfold Underpass

We received representations about the importance of maintaining access for pedestrians and horse riders across the new road between Kingswood Lane and High Pitfold. We were told that this crossing is important because it forms part of a long distance equestrian route. The original scheme would have diverted equestrians to Hammer Lane. We have found that it is feasible to provide an underpass at High Pitfold for pedestrians, horse riders and cyclists, and this has been added to the scheme as shown.

Reducing Traffic Noise

One of the issues that many people have raised is traffic noise and how it could be reduced. Since September we have looked at this in detail and have added some features in to the scheme aimed at reducing noise impact:

• The new road surface has been specified to be lower noise asphalt.
• Earthbunds have been added on the two major embankments at either end of the tunnel to help shield nearby properties see Sections A-A and B-B on this plan.
• Extra noise barriers have been added to the southern part of the scheme, so that they now extend along both sides of the new road from near the Spaniard Inn site to Hazel Grove Junction.

Boundless Lane Junction

The original scheme allowed access to Boundless Lane and the existing A3 to and from the north only. After comments received from Boundless Lane residents about their need for access to the A3 to the south, the junction was redesigned to allow movements to and from both directions, as shown above. We have also moved the junction a little further north to avoid clearance of an area of woodland. This move also enables three footpaths to have a more direct connection across the A3.

Re-alignment in the Tyndalls Wood Area

Concern was expressed about the impact of the scheme on Tyndalls Wood and severance of its footpath network.

We looked into this and found that if the road alignment is moved northward, where the ground is higher, then the tunnel can be extended by about 150m, beneath the easternmost valley. This would need to be done using cut and cover construction techniques because of the limited cover there would be above the tunnel. The new layout is shown above. The realignment would have the following benefits:

• Severance of Tyndalls Wood would be greatly reduced.
• The embankment across the westernmost valley would not be as tall as with the original scheme. This has enabled us to provide larger earth bunds to help screen views of the road from nearby properties and footpaths in the wood without significantly increasing the footprint of the embankment.
• The overall noise impact on Tyndalls Wood and Nutcombe Valley would be reduced.
• Most properties adjacent to the valley would have lower noise levels and better air quality compared to the original scheme. There are no increases of noise or reductions in air quality of significance compared to the original scheme.

Changes to local traffic patterns

Implementation of the scheme will inevitably result in a change to traffic patterns on local roads.

This is because:

• The position of the main junction with the existing road network at Hazel Grove (the most northerly location that is feasible) will attract traffic away from the A287 to Woolmer Hill and Crossways roads.
• Improved access across the new A3, particularly between Grayshott and Haslemere, will similarly attract traffic away from the A287.
• North/south traffic that presently uses local poor standard roads through Liphook, Haslemere and Milford to the east or through Churt and Thursley to the west, to avoid the congestion at the A3/A287 traffic lights, will no longer do so.

It is the changes in flows on Headley Road and Crossways Road in Grayshott, and on Woolmer Hill Road on the outskirts of Haslemere, which have been identified as being of particular concern.

Over the last few months we have studied these problems using our traffic model which can simulate the effects of the scheme on local roads. The results of that work are summarised in the table to the right . The figures have been produced for the morning peak hour in the opening year 2009 on an average weekday. We have also tested some alternative scenarios to see how they would affect flow patterns and in particular to see if the Crossways and Woolmer Hill roads traffic increases could be reduced or, ideally, eliminated.

Please note that some of the reasons for changes in flows are complex and drawing detailed inferences from the figures given may result in incorrect conclusions. The table is there to paint a broad picture as to how flows are likely to change.

Our main findings and initial conclusions are as follows:

• The majority of the local roads listed could expect a reduction in traffic as a result of the scheme.
• Total traffic through Grayshott would not double or treble as some have suggested. However there would be an increase of about 100 vehicles (about 15% of the flow without the scheme). Most of this increase would result from traffic no longer using routes through Thursley to avoid the lights at Hindhead Crossroads.
• Traffic from the Grayshott area wishing to gain access to the A3 northbound would re-route from Headley Road to Crossways Road (increasing the flow on that road from 200 to 550 vehicles).
• Closing Crossways Road would increase traffic on Headley Road East by about 250 vehicles.
• Traffic on Woolmer Hill Road would increase from around 250 to 550 vehicles, mostly because traffic from the Critchmere Hill area of Haslemere would use Woolmer Hill Road as the most direct route to the new junction at Hazel Grove.
• Traffic calming on Woolmer Hill Road, reducing average speeds to about 25mph, would reduce traffic levels on that road to about the same as without the scheme.
• Keeping the existing A3 around the Devil's Punch Bowl and keeping an all movement junction at Hazel Grove would not affect total flows or patterns in Grayshott to any significant extent.
• Keeping the existing A3 open, but removing northbound access and egress at Hazel Grove would only marginally affect the total flows through Grayshott, and flows on Crossways Road would still be nearly double what they would be without the scheme.

Arguments for and against closing the existing A3 around the Punch Bowl

In response to a request from community representatives in Grayshott we have included below a summary of the arguments for and against closing the existing A3 around the Devil's Punch Bowl.

Arguments for closure

• traffic noise from an extensive area of Hindhead Common, which is of national and international importance, allowing:
  • vastly improved accessibility to some of the best views around the Punch Bowl and greatly improved ambience for the whole of the Common for recreational users;
  • a significant improvement in the way the SSSI/SPA can be maintained and managed to keep it in an optimum condition;
  • a significant increase in potential habitat for the birds and mammals that are affected by traffic noise, including rare species.
• Closure compensates for the severe impact of the scheme on the land either end of the tunnel land which could once have been of a quality similar to that of the SSSI.
• Without these significant compensatory benefits, it is likely that the scheme would lose its current support from environmental and amenity organisations, resulting in considerable delay or even abandonment of the scheme.

Arguments against closure

• There would be no local emergency route in the event of an unplanned tunnel closure.
• Only low levels of traffic would be left on the existing A3 and local drivers could still enjoy driving around the Punch Bowl.
• There would be a smaller increase in traffic on Crossways and Woolmer Hill roads compared to the situation without the scheme.

Further comments

• It is estimated that tunnel closures due to a serious road accident are likely to occur about once a year and that a major incident requiring several days closure (eg. large lorry fire) will only occur about once every 75 years.
• The traffic model shows 700 vehicles an hour would use the existing A3 if left open, about 25% of existing flows.
• The local road traffic problems could be more effectively mitigated by traffic management schemes.

Our conclusion is that the case for closing the existing A3 around the Devil's Punch Bowl is sound and we will develop the scheme on that basis. Ultimately we will have to justify its closure at a Public Inquiry if challenged. However, we accept that we need to explore all options for minimising increases in traffic on Crossways and Woolmer Hill roads in particular. At the recent Wider Reference Group meeting we asked your community representatives to consider these issues. Taking the A3 closure as part of the scheme for present purposes, we want to find the most effective way of managing unwanted traffic so that the result is acceptable to those who live and work on the affected roads.

Further information

If you want to discuss or write to us about an issue please contact either:

Paul Arnold on 01306 878475 (Project Team Leader) or

John Martin on 01306 878129 (Project Manager) at

Highways Agency OD (SE),
Room GA
Federated House,
London Road
DORKING,
Surrey RH4 1SZ

or email a3hindhead@highways.gsi.gov.uk