page_title: Hindhead Tunnel
section_title: Assessment of proposals
hierarchical_section_title: Hindhead Tunnel / Design / Assessment of proposals
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial photograph of the A3 running around the rim of the Devil's Punch Bowl. (The road has since been removed, following the opening of the Hindhead Tunnel.) Gibbet Hill can be seen at upper centre.
context_page_description: The Hindhead Tunnel, opened in 2011, is part of the 6.5 km dual-carriageway Hindhead bypass that replaced one of the last remaining stretches of single-carriageway on the 68-mile A3, the London to Portsmouth road. The bypass was constructed to improve road safety, reduce congestion and improve air quality. At 1,830 metres in length, the tunnel is the longest non-estuarial road tunnel in the United Kingdom, and takes the road beneath the Devil's Punch Bowl, a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
context_section_description: The need for improvements to the A3 through Hindhead had been recognised for many years with a route study being undertaken between 1970 and 1976. In 1983 some nine alternatives for the A3 were investigated by the Department for Transport, but assessment showed that only one which went around the north and west side of the Punch Bowl (the "Red Route"), crossing the Smallbrook Valley was viable. A public consultation on the route met with opposition and two
  alternatives were suggested both of which drew less support than the proposed route which in 1988 became the preferred route. Subsequent environmental surveys showed that this route would have substantial adverse impacts resulting in the proposal to adapt an earlier scheme by including a tunnel to avoid the most sensitive parts of the route. The scheme entered the government's targeted programme of improvements in 2001.
  A public inquiry was held in September 2004 to hear objections and to consider alternatives to the proposal. Among the alternative proposals was one for a surface route following a more westerly line that would avoid building a tunnel (an adaptation of the "Red Route"). Despite being significantly more expensive than building a surface road, a tunnel was preferred after two alternative surface schemes were rejected on environmental grounds. 
  The decision to put part of the road in a tunnel pushed the cost of the project to £371 million, with the underground section costing £155,000 per metre (£142,000 per yard) making that section of road the second most expensive road in the UK per unit distance, after the Limehouse Link tunnel.
caption: Aerial view of Devil's Punch Bowl, before the closure of the old A3.
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