Tunnels solve road conflicts, says AA

The conflict between green activists and road builders could be avoided by building more tunnels, according to the Automobile Association.

Britain has too often opted for the "cheap and nasty" leaving us with schemes like Twyford Down on the M3, where a "vast ugly scar" was the price paid for a vital new road, said John Dawson, the AA's policy director.

New technology and falling construction costs mean that a tunnel can be cheaper than building a road on the surface, says an AA report published yesterday.

The AA believes that environmentalists fighting the Salisbury bypass may be placated if the road was built underneath the water meadows which activists are trying to protect.

Britain's planners have delivered only a "handful of miles of tunnel" in the last quarter of a century, but on the Continent they are used to solving traffic problems, Mr Dawson said.

He argued that tunnels could be used far more where intense development had taken place in outstanding countryside and ancient towns.

The study points out that a 7-mile section of the A86 Paris ring road currently under construction will take traffic beneath parklands and the palace of Versailles.

Mr Dawson said: "No one should think that every environment can justify the cost of a tunnel, but in the right place they are worth every penny."

Tunnels can also help avoid costly public inquiries and protests and mean quicker completion of roads.