ABSTRACT
In March 1990 the United Kingdom government announced that it had approved the construction of the remaining part of a major motorway in the south of England. The motorway, the M3, links London to the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth and to the popular holiday resorts of the south-west. The public inquiry into the motorway had, as with many motorway inquiries, been contentious. The decision to be made concerned the final "missing link" in the motorway. It was the last part to be considered, precisely because the joining up of the existing parts of the motorway threatened an area of great natural beauty. The only option which would minimize the environmental damage was to put the road through a tunnel. The inquiry reported that· the tunnel would cost £92 million more than the other options. The government decided it was not worth it and accepted, clearly with some reluctance, the option of cutting the motorway through the area of aesthetic beauty.
