Here is Wiltshire County Council's own alternative 'far western' route, with its eastern scheme shown too.

The extra length of WCC's far western route, as shown on this WCC drawing, is for a Yarnbrook bypass also.

But see how WCC's eastern bypass scheme would be in a loop, around Westbury, to the industrial estates.

The direct western route from the A36 alongside the railway line is shorter and better for this main function.

Wiltshire County Council's web-site on its eastern scheme says that the alternative western route is longer and would cut across open ground, without saying that it was for bypassing Yarnbrook as well as Westbury.

As throughout WCC's history with this scheme, it is just not comparing like with like and is highly misleading.

The far western Westbury route laid out for comparison by the County Council includes a Yarnbrook bypass. This is where the worst local A350 traffic congestion is.  This western route scheme was to resolve it also.

An eastern bypass would actually make it a lot worse still at Yarnbrook and for other local communities.

As WCC's traffic forecasts confirm, WCC's western route could greatly reduce HGV flow past many homes.

Also, in the 2001 WCC report, the comparative far western bypass was actually of a lower estimated cost than the eastern bypass plan.  The western route cost was artificially inflated by adding a huge extra cost for improving the A36.  This extra cost was shown as amounting to about half as much again as the whole estimated cost for a far western Westbury bypass which included a Yarnbrook and a West Ashton bypass. WCC's extra cost for A36 improvement was out of all proportion.  Curiously, the focus of the huge on-cost was prevention of consequent rat-running through the village of Berkley.  The huge extra cost was based on a strange, hypothetical, complicated and circuitous local traffic strategy.  An obvious solution of simply dualling the short previously-upgraded length of the A36 to the A361 Frome bypass would cost much less. The WCC report, which is part of the 2007 planning application, even has A36 improvement as a disbenefit of a far western bypass, when it is obvious that A36 improvement would actually be of widespread benefit. Its cost should be presented separately and should not be unfairly loaded onto the far western route.

The apparent overwhelming concern for avoidance of rat-running through Berkley can be contrasted with Wiltshire County Council's subsequent dropping of Yarnbrook and West Ashton from the scheme altogether.  So these Wiltshire villages would get even more HGVs rumbling through them on the A350, whilst other Wilts villages in the adjacent hinterland, such as Bratton and Steeple Ashton, really would get lots of rat-running because of the worsened choke-up at the unresolved A350 bottleneck at Yarnbrook.

The eastern bypass route passes close to two Sites of Special Scientific Interest, right through the middle of the Special Landscape Area and immediately over the Wellhead Water Source Protection Zone.

The western route is not near to any such environmentally sensitive areas.

Yet Wiltshire County Council's web-site says that the western route will have similar environmental impacts. This muddling claim does not withstand a true comparison with the western route which follows the railway for much of its length (as the middle line on WCC's drawing) and goes around the industrial/trading estates.

In 2001, Wiltshire County Council decided upon an eastern Westbury bypass in conjunction with a Yarnbrook and West Ashton bypass, where the worst local A350 congestion is.

In 2003, the Yarnbrook & West Ashton part was dumped in order for the scheme to appear to be cheaper.

The truncated eastern Westbury bypass scheme is the least useful portion; counter-productive in turning its back on proximity to the railway station and by actually causing yet more HGV congestion elsewhere.

A western route alongside the railway track, to the station, road-rail freight terminal and industrial estates, is shorter than the eastern bypass scheme, consequently would be of much less cost, as it would also not be expensively contending with environmental difficulties, and could resolve most local problems by itself, because (as another advantage over an eastern bypass) it could draw off much of the HGV traffic.

A road around the western side of Westbury will not throw extra HGV flow onto neighbouring communities.

A western route at Westbury would be well aligned for a subsequent Yarnbrook and West Ashton bypass. The eastern Westbury bypass route is in the wrong alignment for a Yarnbrook and West Ashton bypass (according to the County Council's own previously preferred route past Yarnbrook and West Ashton).

The strategy approved by the South West Regional Assembly, back in 2004, was to direct long-distance north-south HGVs by other than the A350.  Wiltshire County Council has not implemented it.  But this, in conjunction with a new western road, of much less cost and of so much greater usefulness, to the station and industrial estates, directly and economically, would work well by itself.