Following the decision by a High Court judge to reject a legal challenge against plans to build a road tunnel under the Unesco World Heritage site, Stonehenge is now under threat of loosing its protected status. Even though local traffic would benefit from the plan, the BBC is already calling it “one of the UK’s most controversial construction projects in living memory” and many voices are being raised to counter the decision.
The first plans for a road tunnel under the site in Wiltshire, southwest England, go back to the 1990’s. Since then, many plans have come and gone, the latest of which is dealing with a budget of 2.5 billion pounds. According to the UK’s National Highways agency, the tunnel would ease traffic on the A303 road, one of the main connections between London, Devon and Cornwall which passes so close to Stonehenge drivers can actually get a good view of the site when passing by.
The agency says this measure would improve the visitor experience and return “the Stonehenge landscape to something like its original setting”. The tunnel would be located about 200 metres from the site while the old single-lane road would be turned into a track for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders. Moreover, the Stonehenge Traffic Action Group is also in favour of the project as it would make daily life easier and finally allow for a road wide enough for the traffic it has to process.
However, there are many that oppose the building of the tunnel. Even Unesco has spoken against the plan, which would cut through the World Heritage Site area that surrounds Stonehenge and therefore its unexcavated archaeological landscape, and are threatening to place Stonehenge on the World Heritage in Danger list. This is, effectively, the first step towards loosing the Unesco World Heritage status altogether, something which has only happened thrice in history.
Other than Unesco, archaeologists such as Professor Mike Parker Pearson from the University College London are taking a stance against the plan. “An estimated half a million artefacts will be removed without record and dumped somewhere else within the rebuilt highway. It’s not only a great loss for us in the present, but it’s misleading for any archaeologists who might dig this stuff up in the future”, he told the BBC.
Environmentalists and members from the Pagan community join the archaeologists in their protest, albeit not for the same reasons. The first group is afraid the works will relocate local wildlife, while the second fears for the desacralisation the works might entail.
