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The Stonehenge tunnel has been cancelled forever, and the view of the stones from the A303 has been preserved. And yet the Heritage Journal didn’t splash a “Hooray!” online. The truth is, that the Heritage Journal’s decade-long resistance of the ‘Stonehenge tunnel’ has left us rather numb.
All those who opposed the Stonehenge tunnel agreed from the beginning that a lack of money would likely stop the tunnel. That was our puzzling dilemma. If there was never likely to be enough money and it could never prove value for money, if it didn’t protect or enhance the World Heritage Site, or solve the traffic issues of local residents or motorists crossing Wiltshire – why was the Stonehenge tunnel even a thing?
The government’s own heritage employees were behind the initial push for the 2013 -2024 edition of the tunnel.
For Historic England, the Stonehenge tunnel was a power play. If Unesco withdrew World Heritage Site status because of the tunnel, Historic England would be top dog in command of a prehistoric theme park.
The idea appealed to Tory politicians – the Stonehenge tunnel they couldn’t pay for was a mirage that would gain votes.
For the National Trust, the tunnel presented the opportunity to remove tarmac and traffic from their property at the taxpayer’s expense. This in turn presented a golden opportunity to usurp the English Heritage Visitor Centre with a National Trust ‘Stonehenge Landscape’ visitor centre near Countess (which would attract the vast majority of Stonehenge visitors because they travel from the direction of London).
Then of course, there is the traffic-plagued local resident and the delayed A303 motorist, both of whom were unwittingly played by the above politicians and heritage professionals.
The ‘tunnel that never was’ has left many bewildered and upset – some mistakenly blame the Labour Party, the Stonehenge Alliance, Unesco, or English Heritage. Those responsible have meanwhile got away with the Stonehenge tunnel scam 2013-2024.
Together with the National Trust, the government’s own heritage body – Historic England – were central in orchestrating a scandal that may yet rank alongside the Post Office Horizon saga. A fantasy, conducted by empire-building heritage professionals, was ultimately at the root of the heightened see-sawing hopes and fears both conservationists and local residents were subjected to for a decade. Those involved will never be identified or held to account.
We see no reason to celebrate this, we are though relieved that the devastating Stonehenge tunnel has gone for good.
Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) has been given permission to appeal the decision earlier this year by Mr Justice Holgate. He dismissed SSWHS’s application for judicial review of the Government’s decision to approve a highly damaging, £2.5bn road scheme through Stonehenge World Heritage Site, for a second time.
UNESCO, five planning inspectors and over 238,000 people are all opposed to National Highways’ highly damaging plans. Save Stonehenge WHS’s legal action had been the only thing stopping the giant earthmovers from entering this 5,000-year-old landscape.
John Adams, chair of the Stonehenge Alliance and one of the 3 directors of SSWHS, said:
“This is extremely good news. All those who care passionately about our cultural heritage can breathe a sigh of relief. We now have a new opportunity for the Government decision to be thoroughly scrutinised.
“This road scheme would be incredibly damaging to Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Yet, the Government doesn’t seem to care and is desperately trying to bulldoze through this decision before it is thrown out of office.”
Leigh Day solicitor Rowan Smith said:
“This news is very encouraging for our client. In granting permission to appeal, the Court of Appeal acknowledged the scale of public interest around ensuring that a decision about the future of Stonehenge is lawful.
“The Court said there is a compelling reason for an appeal hearing. Our client is looking forward to presenting arguments about the fairness of the decision-making process relating to the future of Stonehenge as well as compliance with international law protecting the World Heritage Site.”
SSWHS now has to raise a further £34,000 for the Appeal Court. Accordingly, the CrowdJustice page has a new target of £134,000. This is to raise the additional funds needed for the hearing at the Court of Appeal.
News that HS2 have given their tunnel boring machine an adoptive name, in an unashamed bid to humanize the destructive process, we think readers may welcome the opportunity to name each of the westbound and eastbound tunnels National Highways are seeking to bore at Stonehenge.
Where HS2 have named their tunnel boring machine after named after a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, we suggest the Stonehenge tunnel boring machine be named ‘Cameron’s Clanger’, after the Prime Minister who gave the current A303 Scheme the go-ahead. As for the eastbound and westbound tunnels that Cameron’s Clanger will create at Stonehenge – over to you dear readers.
Please keep suggestions clean.
Today Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) learnt that its judicial review of the Government’s decision to approve a highly damaging, £2.5bn road scheme through Stonehenge World Heritage Site, for a second time, had been unsuccessful. Mr Justice Holgate in handing down his judgement today dismissed the application. SSWHS have said that they intend to appeal the decision.
The judgement comes after a 3 day hearing in the High Court in December. UNESCO, five planning inspectors and over 236,000 people were all opposed to National Highways’ highly damaging plans. Save Stonehenge WHS’s legal action had been the only thing stopping the giant earthmovers from entering this 5,000-year-old landscape.
John Adams, chair of the Stonehenge Alliance and one of the 3 directors of SSWHS, said:
“In the face of Government indifference to the harm this road will cause the World Heritage Site, we had no choice but to bring this legal action. While this judgement is a huge blow and exposes the site to National Highway’s state sponsored vandalism, we will continue the fight. In the dying days of this Conservative Government, which has inflicted so much damage on the country, we cannot let it destroy our heritage as well.”
Tom Holland, historian and president of the Stonehenge Alliance, said:
“This is a devastating loss, not just for everyone who has campaigned against the Government’s pig-headed plans for the Stonehenge landscape, but for Britain, for the world, and for subsequent generations.”
SSWHS successfully raised over £80,000 to bring this action. SSWHS will now have to raise a further £15,000 in order to apply for permission to appeal at the Court of Appeal. If a hearing is granted, a further £40,000 could be required.
The CrowdJustice page has a new interim target of £100,000. This is to raise the additional funds needed to make an application for permission to appeal (at the Court of Appeal). If a hearing is granted, the CrowdJustice target is likely to need to rise to around £140,000.
Whilst we await the result of the judge’s deliberations following the latest appeal against the tunnel on the A303 at Stonehenge, we can turn our attentions to what can be considered a yowling moggy by omission.
We should all be familiar with this delightful/horrendous (depending upon your viewpoint) image of the tunnel entrance as ‘planned’:
But that’s not half the story! Back in June last year, we provided a comparison with the A30 roadworks at Chiverton Cross in Cornwall, a project that is still ongoing with regular closures of the road and lengthy diversions.
As if the potential temporary roadworks aren’t enough, a recent letter to the Salisbury Journal by a construction engineer, headed “fine detail missing from designs” points out some quite serious omissions in the Highways England image:
The tunnel will need electricity sub-stations, one at either end, water holding tanks for the fire suppression systems, holding tanks for the tunnel drainage water, an admin building for the tunnel staff and control room etc.
It will also need an apron at either end for the breakdown recovery vehicles and emergency vehicles, and safe areas for evacuees in the event of a major incident.
None of these structures/areas appear on the artist impression and they will be needed, some can perhaps be underground but not without significantly increasing the footprint of the site.
All tunnels need smoke and extract fans and lighting so they are sources of pollution…
It will be interesting to see if/when an updated impression is released, showing the true picture. Unless of course, all of this infrastructure is to be omitted from the project – but that’s unthinkable, isn’t it??
From Stonehenge Alliance
BBC ANY QUESTIONS was recently hosted by English Heritage at Stonehenge Visitor Centre.
Unsurprisingly the panel was asked if the Stonehenge plan was a good thing. No prizes for guessing what sort of answers the Government and English Heritage were hoping for. But look …
Their first panellist, Rebecca Pow the Government’s Environment Minister, was dutifully supportive of the scheme “Need to bring more tourists to SW. “
But the other three …
____________________________________________________________
Darren Jones MP (Labour): It’s sad. Pretty daft.
Sir Ed Davey MP (LibDem): Too expensive. Go back to drawing board
Sherelle Jacobs (Daily Telegraph columnist): vandalism … it’s bonkers. ____________________________________________________________
Oh dear. Gang aft agley eh?
You may have seen that Historic England recently published their annual ‘Heritage at Risk‘ register. As its name implies, this is meant to list the heritage assets of England that are deemed to be at some level of risk in the foreseeable future – presumably so that such assets may be included in plans to avert or mitigate such risks going forward.
There is an interesting searchable map provided, which shows the spread of such assets that are listed. Looking at the area around Stonehenge, given the current plans for a tunnel, you would expect to see many monuments listed in the area, and indeed, this is the case:
However, a closer inspection of many of these sites, shows no mention of the intended roadbuilding or associated groundworks. In fact, the most common listed ‘risk’ in the area is ‘arable ploughing’! Some of the possible options for an explanation of this omission are:
- ‘Arable ploughing‘ is a new buzzword for ‘road construction’.
- There has been a total lack of foresight when compiling the register
- IT’S ANOTHER YOWLING MOGGY!!
So, which is it??…
the Save Stonehenge WHS campaign is scheduled to have its day in court in just 12 days, with a second hearing to challenge the government’s decision to ‘plough through’ the world heritage site. The plans will doubtless result in Stonehenge losing its World Heritage status with ICOMOS. The court hearing will begin on Tuesday, 12th December at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. It’s scheduled to run for three days and will be a rolled-up hearing, where the permission to be heard and the full case are held at the same time. The last day will be Thursday, 14th.
If you can, please support the challenge by making a donation, here.
The saga of opposition to the tunnel at Stonehenge continues. The Stonehenge Alliance issued an update bulletin earlier this week:
We now have the date for the court hearing
It will be a ‘rolled up hearing’ where permission to be heard and the full case are held at the same time. It will begin on Tuesday, 12th December at the Royal Courts of Justice in London and is scheduled to run for three days. The last day will be Thursday, 14th.
When will the judgment be handed down?
Probably in the new year, The judge has not yet been announced but it could be Mr Justice Holgate who heard the previous judicial review.
Why should the Transport Secretary’s decision be thrown out?
The hearing will be the legal team’s chance to make the case as to why the decision should be thrown out again. This will probably be harder this time round as the Government has at least made a pretence of considering alternative options. Nonetheless, there are several grounds where the team feels the decision has erred in law, including proper consideration of alternatives, These should give the judge strong reasons to quash the decision again, but it will all hang on legal arguments made by the KCs.
It’s a nerve-wracking time and the target hasn’t been reached!
Over 2,000 generous donors have contributed to Save Stonehenge WHS’s appeal. This is an amazing result despite straightened circumstances. BUT the CrowdJustice target is short by around £18,000. To ensure the very best possible outcome please share the crowdfunder below with one or two. It’s a hackneyed expression, but every little bit really does help.
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Supporters have been helping in all sorts of ways
200 of our new leaflets were distributed outside the National Trust AGM last week. You can order leaflets here (free of charge) to distribute where you live, local museum or library, to help raise awareness of the threat to the World Heritage Site.
Some supporters are plotting and planning to sell merchandise to support the cause. We will let you have the details as soon as we have them.
Would you like to join us at the Royal Courts of Justice in London?
Please reply to his email if you would like to come and we will send you the details.
As ever, thanks so much for your support.
Best wishes,
The Stonehenge Alliance team
It’s simple. You keep those who are able to vote on the matter in the dark!
Stonehenge Alliance
55 m ·
We were taken aback to meet National Trust Council members who supported the Trust’s position to support Stonehenge road scheme but had not heard of Blick Mead or other archaeological or heritage attributes that could be affected by the scheme. So look out for a briefing which we will share next week.
Earlier this year, in March, we highlighted a stunning photo by Stonehenge Dronescapes of the Northern Lights over the stones. At the time, we suggested that if the tunnel plans go ahead:
It will probably be the last one that travellers on the A303 will ever see.
We were wrong! The picture below was taken by Stonehenge Dronescapes at the weekend.
However, it is still an obvious truth that if the plans for the tunnel go ahead, views such as the one above will be lost to travellers on the A303 forever!
Please support the Stonehenge Alliance‘s legal fight to stop the plans for the tunnel by donating here. There are only 17 days left to reach their latest funding target…
The Heritage Journal 
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