Yes, that is correct, it’s the second time it has been pushed forward.

@William Kenealy okay, thank you for getting back to me.

@Phyllis Jenny Weston one of our Parish Councillor will be coming tomorrow to assist, she lives just north of Guys Marsh

@Phyllis Phyllis, I did not realise the banner would be ready so quickly! I won’t be back home until the 31st, so am happy to hold the banner anytime after then. I can see If anyone in the village is willing to help on Friday?

Yes lots of people don’t. The council like to keep it quiet... a certain Tory also lived on the A350 for a while and was particularly unhelpful (no surprise). Thanks Phyllis!

@Phyllis We have also protested in the past by the electronic sign, and that was effective.

Yes! The A350 villages are suffering, but so are Cann Common and Melbury in equal measure. The pollution levels are horrendous and people in Melbury cannot get out of their driveways quite often. The trouble is the council would rather pit us against each other and will use that to their advantage. We need to fight them and their ridiculous schemes together.

@Natalie Carr Yes it’s the usual divide and conquer, there should not be arctics on either road, and unfortunately a certain group thinks the solution is just to move lorries off one road and onto another, that does nothing to help Shaftesbury!

@Phyllis Count me in, I will hold one end!

@Phyllis I know she is fully aware of the issue.

Yes, but understandable if one has tried to stop these developments working through the existing ’system’. The AONB advises that objections be sent to Matt Prosser, Dorset Council chief executive:

chiefexecutive@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk

@William Kenealy what do you recommend? action wise?

@Phyllis

For one, email your objection to this scheme to Matt Prosser, the Dorset chief executive, some key points you can make: Dorset County Council created the ‘problem’ themselves by encouraging lorry traffic through Melbury Abbas, which undercut the Hollow banks, and then tried to aggressively cut trees which needlessly caused more erosion, so create a problem, an over-reaction and then a solution in the name of ‘safety’ (destroy the Hollow and the village).

The amount of money already wasted (£3.4M+) has had little to zero effect on traffic patterns or volume on the A350/C13 corridor.

HGVs now make up less than 2% of the corridor traffic (compared to 11% in 2000) and overall traffic volume is flat.  

Tonnage in and out of Poole port (which is always brought up by the council as a reason we need to push traffic through here) has dropped by 60% since 2010. 

And of course more roads do not ’create’ jobs, they just encourage more traffic and pollution.

Planet Shaftesbury may also organise an event to highlight the issue, I thought a Sunday kite flying day on the Beacon might be effective in September.

Yes our own mini version!

Here is a recent comment on our Facebook page from a member of the public, you may not agree with it in its entirety, but it does sum up the current state of affairs:

“Dorset Council is simply anti-Dorset. The mess they have made with residential builds in Shaftesbury and Gollingham, the huge development in Bridport, the plans to turn Dorchester into a sort of infrastructure free version of Swindon with the 4,000 residential units north of the water meadows and what will potentially be the largest Solar Farm in Dorset, the incinerator in Portland - there is no end. Dorset is an awful county - its difficult to see it as any longer seriously rural, at the same time it has no social infrastructure, no theatre, no art galleries, no nothing, just a free for all for developers and absentee large land owners whose only interests lie in making money.“