The Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP
Secretary of State for Transport
Department for Transport
Great Minster House
33 Horseferry Road
London
SW1P 4DR
3 November 2025
Dear Secretary of State,
To govern is to choose and your Department and Government has, regrettably, chosen not to deliver the improvements to the A303 adjacent to Stonehenge. This is a blow to the tourism and wider economy of the whole of the South West.
I understand that your Department is proposing to revoke the Development Consent Order. As you will have been advised by your Officials, it has taken a long time to reach this point in the planning process. A future Government may wish to resurrect this project and it would be heartbreaking if the process to secure consent had to be begun from the very beginning. Time consuming. Costly.
Therefore, and while still urging you to rethink your decision and actually deliver the A303 improvements, can a way not be found to legally mothball the Development Consent Order? There must be a way to do so which would future proof the project while not writing off a considerable amount of public money spent in getting the proposal to its current state.
I would be happy to meet to discuss.
Yours ever,
SIMON HOARE
Simon Hoare
Member of Parliament for North Dorset