Worthing Borough Council council and Transport for the South East (TFSE) are both supporting a plan to relieve congestion on the A27 that runs along the South Coast by creating the UK’s longest road tunnel, planned to be 4Km to 5Km long. A tunnel on the A3 would be a similar lenght to by-pass Guildford, the Hindhead Tunnel is 1.85Kms long .
Plans for the road tunnel would see the scheme to delivered between 2045 and 2050 and cost roughly £2bn as part of TfSE’s Strategic Investment Plan for the South East.
TfSE’s has identified that when congestion builds on the A27 at present traffic diverts away from the A27 to alternative routes that are less suited to high volumes.
The tunnel is designed to tackle that issue as well as reducing congestion on the A27.
Former British Tunnelling Society chair Bill Grose believes that using a tunnel to divert A27 traffic into a tunnel was achievable technically, as the area is not tricky geologically.
Space issues on a crowded island make Tunnels increasingly attractive as they potentially free up valuable land on the land at the surface and that tends to make people want to drive underground for one reason or another.”
Transport Action Network founder Chris Todd believes TfSE’s plans fail to address the climate emergency as we need to start reducing carbon emissions. Building bigger roads can often attract more traffic.
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