Great Western Coffee Shop

Just seen this on the BBC web site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35235864 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35235864)

As someone who had just moved to the Newbury area at the time I remember this well - along with the appearance of Swampy (didn't he go on to protest at Manchester airport?) and the rare snails.

I suppose at the time it was difficult to imagine that the A34 would just be accepted as part of the landscape...maybe in time the OLE gantries will cease to be as controversial

Of course we have also had the Greenham peace women (before my time) and various AWE protests...what a lively area to live in!

Wonder what happened to Swampy? He's probably got a high-powered corporate job by now

Head of marketing for HS2?

Swampy - real name Daniel Hooper- is a friend of a friend.  Last I heard he was working in forestry in Wales. 

If the internet is to be believed you are right...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/10282538/Swampy-retires-from-protests-to-get-a-job-picking-acorns.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/10282538/Swampy-retires-from-protests-to-get-a-job-picking-acorns.html)

I moved to W Berks around about the time the bypass opened, so only experienced the horrors of what Newbury was like before it opened for a short while.

It certainly doesn't stop the A339 through town getting pretty clogged to this day - often at weekends and when there's a race meeting on.

One of the interesting facts around the bypass is that a lot of crushed concrete from the demise of the 3000m of runway at Greenham Common got used in the construction.

Yes, "Swampy" did go on to sit in a tree near to the site of the 2nd runway at Manchester International. That got built aswell ;-)

You are spot on about traffic on race days. I believe on the most recent race day the new bridge over the railway (and the eastern end of the race course) was temporarily opened but because I don't remember venturing into that part of the world that day I can't recall what effect it had.

As you probably know the Boundary Line road bridge, which needs to be raised to allow the OLE for the track which it crosses, is now closed for a year.

As for protesters (generally) I have no problem with peaceful demonstrations but some of the tactics the A34 protesters (and the Greenham Peace Camp women for that matter) used were a little unsavoury.  Regarding Greenham common there was collective local disbelief when the council agreed to a memorial to the peace movement being built!

As a major road, the Newbury bypass seems sub-standard in a lot of respects, particularly the layout of some of the junctions and lay-bys.

I agree - but prior to the Newbury bypass stretch being built Newbury was a major bottleneck for traffic coming from the M3 to the M40...as far as I know there are no longer any roundabouts between these two points which is great for through traffic.

The main pinch point then becoming Chievely (largely solved just after the turn of the century with a dog's dinner of an interchange), and junctions with the M40 and M3.

Need to work out what to do at Botley though too really.

I think "Dogs Dinner" is probably a good way of describing the A34/M4 junction at Chievely. If I have been north I do not like the section where you have to switch from the A34 to the A339 which I would consider to be a "high speed" crossover

Moving north, if you sort out the north bound traffic delays at Botley you then make the problem at the junction with the M40 even worse!

Thanks,  Having 4 children isn't very green is it.

MMMmmm.not sure I agree about the lack of greeness Tim :) ..if I read the article correctly there are no electricity or water supplies to the site where they live. So how they wash I have no idea!

Somewhat OT, but while I don't remember the specific tactics used by the Greenham women, I do think that it's a mistake to refuse to commemorate significant events and people because we find them unsavoury. They happened, and that's what should be remembered, hopefully in good and bad aspects: just as we have a statue of a major philanthropist in the centre of Bristol who happened to be a slave trader or as the names of Lenin and Stalin need to remembered, in celebration and condemnation, in Eastern Europe.

There is a proposal (announced late 14) to provide a free flowing link southbound from the A34 to the M3, but I suspect it is still several years away.

Taking two subjects raised here....

Questions were asked about the slip roads of the bypass after a woman was killed after apparently misjudging the shortness of one of them and crashing into a barrier on the curve days after the road opened.

That was nothing however to the furore which erupted when the Greenham Common peacecamp was issued with its own postcode because it was receiving so much post.