WITH reference to the possible spend on the A303 (Journal, April 4) and comments made by English Heritage and Jan Swindlehurst.

It is not just dual carriageway past Stonehenge that is required, it is a bypass beyond and through Winterbourne Stoke.

English Heritage has been a thorn in the side of any improvements past Stonehenge for more than 25 years.

How can it ever be 'sympathetic?'

Only the tunnel would have shown some sympathy to the countryside.

Negotiation, surveys, village and town meetings, plan upon plan just for a visitor centre must have run into many millions over the years.

It is interesting to note that the present visitor centre site, well underway now, was the first to be dismissed by English Heritage more than 15 years ago.

Jan Swindlehurst is so correct in what she says: “We are not holding our breath.”

But if we do get the go-ahead, the £30million might move the problem further down the way.

JOHN WIGGLESWORTH, Durrington

IF the A303 past Stonehenge is made into a dual carriageway the opportunity should not be missed to make the traffic less conspicuous as viewed from the monument.

To reduce both sight and sound the short stretch over the crest of the hill, where the tunnel was proposed, needs to be put below the present ground level.

The new carriageway, after an archaeological sweep, should be made in a cutting, then all traffic diverted to this new section while the original road is dug up and remade in a parallel trench.

It is to be hoped that some of the promised £3billion can be allocated to dual the other four choke points between Amesbury and Exeter.

Maybe someday we can have a road as convenient and pleasant to drive on as that from Santander to Malaga.

CHRISTOPHER PENFOLD, Salisbury