TAMING THE TARMAC: ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND BRITISH ROADS

1
TAMING THE TARMAC ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND
BRITISH ROADS
A lane now buried beneath the Newbury Bypass.
Enclosure makes straight roads but the crooked
roads are the roads of genius. William Blake
2
M62 in the Pennines. Road building in Britain has
a major impact on the landscape. In the roads
debate the landscape has often been the field of
battle.
3
Road building is expensive. Typically a dual
carriageway costs 10 million/km and a tunnel
costs 20-25 million per km/bore. However, there
are also a whole range of environmental or real
costs. Controversies over road building
illustrate the way in which society demands
convenient communications but is seldom prepared
to pay the real cost.
4
Tree felling for the Newbury bypass. This
controversial scheme in 1995 was a defining
moment for road building in the U.K. The
environmental protest became international news
and cost 62 million to police. The roads
programme was stopped in its tracks and road
building would never be the same again.
5
Newbury had been preceded in 1993 by another
controversial scheme at Winchester.
6
Ironically however, this scheme, which involves a
highly unpopular new cutting, also sowed the
seeds of a more creative approach to road
building. The old Winchester bypass (above)..
7
.was dug up.
8
and returned to chalk grassland. In this way the
severance between St Catherine's Hill and the
Winchester water meadows was reversed, allowing
tranquil access between the two.
9
In East London, a new road has overcome the
problem of previous severence and a green
bridge has been constructed which supports trees
and an urban park flowing seamlessly over the
traffic.
10
Meanwhile controversies have continued in the
adjacent county of Surrey, the back garden of
London, where commuters and other members of the
community fight vigorously to preserve the
quality of their view.
11
At Hindhead, one of the worst bottle-necks in
southern England has continued to pollute the
grimy village street, as for over 20 years nobody
could agree
12
.to a widening scheme through the Devils Punch
Bowl, a Site of Special Scientific Interest
(SSSI) and Special Protected Area (SPA), owned by
the National Trust.
13
In 2003, the Environmental Statement was
completed for a tunnel beneath the Devils Punch
Bowl, which allows the old road to be removed and
returned to heathland habitat. However, as the
scheme goes to inquiry, it is still subject to
controversy.
14
The major issue at Hindhead is recreation, as
sectional lobbies fight over who gets the best
deal over access to the newly restored
playground. There are walkers
15
.cyclists, 4-wheel drivers, conservationists,
some of whom would like minimum access for the
public.
16
and even carriage drivers who are entitled to
legal access along the Byways Open to All Traffic
(BOATs).
17
There is even a lobby of local residents who want
to keep the old road open. This is partly because
they believe all tunnels are dangerous but
largely because they fear rat-running past their
homes, as traffic is diverted to the new tunnel.
18
Therefore the major issue for road engineers and
environmentalists is to work together as early as
possible to find the best route. Here many
alternatives for a section of the A1 are drawn up
before a Preferred Route is adopted.
19
This hypothetical example illustrates a town
which needs to be bypassed with a road travelling
from the top of the drawing to the bottom. It
indicates the kind of show-stoppers which must
be avoided if a scheme is ever to get through
Public Inquiry successfully.
20
There is however an even deeper set of principles
and questions that must be addressed when
considering a road scheme. The first one is
whether it should be a road at all and how well
the proposed road is integrated with other forms
of transport.
21
Cars are notorious for their emissions of carbon
dioxide, making them a major contributor to
global warming and so leading to droughts,
sea-level rise and flooding.
22
However, while trains are more sustainable in
this respect, planes are worse, and the use of
air travel is accelerating even faster than the
use of cars.
23
Roads are a major cause of death and injury, a
fact that society largely chooses to ignore.
While there are approximately 10 people a year
killed on British trains, around 10 people a day
are killed on roads in the U.K.
24
Traffic noise is a major adverse impact of most
road schemes. Mitigations can include noise
barriers and quiet surfacing.
25
Lighting can pollute the night skies, although
high pressure sodium lights are less diffuse than
others.
26
Water runoff containing oil and salt can pollute
areas adjacent to the highway and even enter the
aquifer. Drainage ponds are often built beside
the road and established with aquatic vegetation.
Together with silt traps these can reduce the
impact of road runoff.
27
This scheme at Batheaston near Bristol has a
sympathetically landscaped storm drainage lagoon.
The excavated spoil has been used to create a
false bund, concealing the road which lies in the
middle distance between the lagoon and the
church. In addition wildflowers have been
established in the foreground.
28
Nature conservation is another major issue for
road engineers. Protected species such as
badgers, bats, water voles and newts need to be
surveyed and then translocated away from the
proposed project. English Nature would also
object to new roads through SSSIs, although if a
nature reserve is affected in a small way it is
sometimes possible to provide suitable habitat on
exchange land.
29
However, road schemes can also create
opportunities for new habitat. These orchids and
ox-eye daisies are growing on the hard shoulder
of the A303 in Wiltshire.
30
All the issues discussed above need to be
assessed in the Environmental Statement which is
the basis of the subsequent Public Inquiry.
However, the road then has to be built. To ensure
that the environmental proposals are carried
through, it is important to involve the
contractor through training, an Environmental
Management Plan (EMP) and Early Contractor
Involvement (ECI).
31
The famous monument of Stonehenge lies at the
centre of one of Britain's most controversial
current road schemes.
32
The stones stand on a triangle of land between
the A303 to the south (left in the picture) and
the A360 (right in the picture).
33
In the past the lonely turnpike track, as shown
in this drawing by Turner, hardly impinged on the
tranquillity of the stones.
34
However, by the late twentieth century, the A303
had become a major trunk road to the West
Country. Lorries roar past the site which is also
dominated by the visitors car park. As with
Hindhead, failure to find a way of widening the
road through the World Heritage Site has led to
massive queues. As a result Stonehenge was
described in 1993 in the House of Commons as a
National Disgrace.
35
The challenge therefore is to find a new way
through from Amesbury (top right) to the improved
section of the A303 beyond Yarnbury Castle
(centre left). The main constraints as shown in
this plan are the World Heritage Site, the
Parsonage Down SSSI/NNR and the river valleys.
36
In addition, the whole area is overlain with a
dense network of archaeological features.
Stonehenge is the circle within the triangle at
the centre of the plan.
37
This shows an excavation being carried out in
2001 near Stonehenge as part of a survey for a
road scheme.
38
The stones themselves are only the tiny centre of
an enormous historic site constructed over
thousands of years. This early engraving shows
the parallel earthworks known as the Avenue'
which led from the River Avon to the stones.
39
Parsonage Down nature reserve is of great value
for its flower-rich turf.
40
Another local rarity is the Stone Curlew.
41
Intensive farming especially of ploughing has
reduced many of these habitats and species to
less than 5 of their former range over the past
fifty years.
42
Therefore the chalk grassland at Parsonage Down
is especially valuable. What is more, such a
habitat can now be extended as part of the
restoration of the setting of Stonehenge.
43
Over the past 10 years British agriculture has
gone into decline. Therefore the pressure to farm
on the wider Stonehenge site is reduced.
Restoration of habitats becomes possible
especially on the National Trust Land and using
chalk subsoil from the engineering works to
spread on the over-fertile ploughed fields. Wild
flowers will thrive in the nutrient-poor chalk.
44
To the west of Stonehenge lies the River Till.
45
This is of value for Water Crowfoot and many
dragonflies.
46
However, the stream is fed by an aquifer and
tunnelling can potentially damage the river by
interrupting the flow. In addition the river
could be polluted by the disposal of water pumped
out to allow tunnel building.
47
For this reason careful hydrological modelling is
needed to reassure the Environment Agency that
the streams will not dry out.
48
Another constraint is the historic landscape of
Amesbury Abbey southeast of the stones. The law
requires that the setting of such historic
monuments and landscapes is not damaged.
49
Tourism also presents dilemmas for Stonehenge.
The arrival of 850 thousand tourists a year
threatens to overwhelm the place even if the
present car park is moved further away.
50
However, tourism has always presented pressures
for the monument. This eighteenth century drawing
shows a tourist receiving a chiselled-off
splinter of stone as a memento.
51
In addition, it was customary to capture wild
birds such as Wheatears and roast them for
tourists.
52
But, an even deeper question faces those who wish
to restore Stonehenge. What is it that we want to
restore the monument to? Each generation has had
a different idea about what the nature and
quality of Stonehenge is. This painting by Turner
epitomises the romantic view of the monument.
53
The myth of druids, who never in fact existed at
Stonehenge continues to dominate some peoples
perception of the site.
54
The image lying at the back of many peoples
minds, when they talk of restoration, is perhaps
the Stonehenge of the late nineteenth century
when the stones were the setting for romantic
novels such as Tess of the D'Urbervilles by
Thomas Hardy.
55
In the early twentieth century the Air Force had
other ideas and even discussed removing the
stones to facilitate the flight path for an early
airfield.
56
Ever since the 1960s the site has been a shrine
for the New Age cultures.
57
Students are asked to devise a transport scheme
which relieves traffic congestion between
Amesbury and Winterbourne Stoke, while at the
same time restoring the setting of Stonehenge and
catering for visitors without the intrusion of
the present car park. Do not turn to the next
image until after this project is completed.
58
The current scheme proposed in 1999 involves a
2km tunnel, south of the stones and the removal
of the A360 branch. An additional 9km of road
widening is proposed to the east and west of the
tunnel at a cost of 130 million. The car park
would also be relocated to Amesbury.
59
This scheme goes to inquiry in 2004. However the
National Trust has requested the length of the
tunnel to be doubled to remove the road from the
entire World Heritage Site. The scheme is also
being opposed by English Nature and the
Environment Agency on the grounds of damage to
the watercourses.