HIGHWAYS England is now consulting on a £540m proposal to build a tunnel at Stonehenge, using money from the National Productivity Investment Fund, as part of a scheme for “a new South West Expressway, capable of sustaining mile-a-minute travel by 2029”.

How much attention is Highways England giving to providing a suitable road connecting our South East Dorset Conurbation to the M4, for example by dualising the A338/A346 between Ringwood and Swindon?

Our local industries, together with the Port of Poole and Bournemouth Airport, need such a North-South highway in order to grow and prosper.

That our links to Wales, the Midlands and the North are so woefully inadequate has seemed to be nobody’s problem.

Is it too much to expect that when we have the hoped-for unitary authority for our whole conurbation it will immediately punch its full weight and press the case for addressing this situation?

JOHN PROBERT

Sherwood Avenue, Poole

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