Latest news from Rescue News 89 (Spring 2003)

The Ministerial announcement on 10 December 2002 proposing a lamentably short 2.1km bored tunnel for the A303 at Stonehenge has gathered few supporters apart from English Heritage who may understandably have been expected to recommended it to Ministers in the first place. Of course we should be pleased that bored rather than cut-and-cover engineering has now been accepted � and that the cost of bored tunnelling is now far less than it was. It seems, however, that it would still be necessary to break the surface in Stonehenge Bottom to achieve an acceptable angle of slope in tunnelling from King Barrow Ridge.

Following the December road announcement, ICOMOS-UK, in a strongly worded statement, said that it was concerned that the proposal 'does not go far enough in healing the scars in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site landscape or in making it available overall for people to enjoy in peace and quiet.' It drew attention to the fact that 'The Stonehenge WHS is a key part of the nation's cultural capital: that capital needs optimising not compromising.'

The CBA's latest Stonehenge position statement concludes, on currently available evidence, 'The long tunnel appears to be the best way of achieving the enduring environmental benefits that the long-term vision for the Stonehenge landscape requires.' (British Archaeology 68, December 2002)

These two welcome pronouncements, which clearly echo the resolve of the National Trust's Council to support a long bored tunnel (resoundingly endorsed by its members at their November AGM), suggest a significant turning point.

It would be interesting to know why the Ministerial decision was for the cheap option (�183m including VAT) for the proposed 2.1km scheme, against an estimated �400m for a long tunnel (4.5km). As a 'Special Environmental Scheme', it might have been supposed that the whole environment of the WHS would have been the first consideration. The sum still needed to do the better job (for the benefit of all mankind and future generations) compares favourably with the sum apparently required by the same Department for simply preparing a bid for a London venue for the 2012 Olympics. The cost of constructing any Olympic facilities, should a bid be successful, is already said to be �4bn and rising. This makes a nonsense of penny pinching at Stonehenge where we are reasonably certain of the costs involved and where the relevant management infrastructure for completing the work is in place.

Moreover, the A303 decision does nothing to solve the knotty problem of visitor-access. A planning application for the new visitor-centre may be expected in the spring and visitor-access to the landscape will need to be an integral part of those proposals. English Heritage now presumably finds itself in an interesting position vis-à-vis the National Trust, its partners in the Stonehenge Project. Will the visitor-access scheme be based on a short tunnel following English Heritage's stated priority concern for the core area of the WHS? Or will it be more sensibly oriented on a long tunnel scheme, favoured by the Trust and the Management Plan, that would allow more flexibility, and better enjoyment of the whole site without further damaging it?

We are reminded that Lottery funding for the visitor-centre will not be forthcoming until the outcome of the A303 Inquiry is known. There can be no certainty that the Government-backed road scheme will be implemented as currently proposed. Why then the hurry to make a visitor-centre planning application? On present form, there could be changes of plan over the next few years.

An interesting paper by Ian Baxter and Christopher Chippindale has appeared recently in Current Archaeology (No. 183, January 2003). They propose a low-cost, no-further-damage 'brownfield option' for improved visitor-facilities in the present location, giving immediate access to what visitors want to see. Their scheme would not, however, rid the landscape of a sea of parked cars; and an accompanying but unlabelled map hints at a tour of the monuments via a circuitous routeway that might in itself provide a new and extensive monument to blight the landscape.

Meanwhile, archaeological and environmental organisations, including Rescue representatives, are considering possible representation of objection at an A303 Inquiry expected towards the end of this year. We will continue to keep members informed.

Kate Fielden 16.1.03