Stonehenge update for Rescue News 87

Representatives of interested organisations were invited by the Council for British Archaeology to attend a one-day discussion forum, 'Stonehenge and the Roads', on 27 February. It was encouraging to hear that bored tunnelling would not necessarily involve widespread devastation of the landscape at the tunnel entrances: engineers could work within a restricted area and, if necessary, some of the works infrastructure and space could be located elsewhere, off-site.

The cost of bored tunnelling is acknowledged to have come down in recent years and engineers will work up designs for both bored and cut and cover short (2km) tunnels. (The 'early design and build' contract was awarded in March jointly to Balfour Beatty and Costain, supported by designers Halcrow and Gifford.) A long bored tunnel will be considered in the Environmental Assessment though apparently not to the same level of detail as the short tunnels. Thus the concern of ICOMOS-UK that all of the tunnels under consideration should be assessed on equal terms may not be precisely met.

At the Highways Agency's A303 Stonehenge Improvement Public and Community Liaison Group meeting in Amesbury on 14 May we learned that, although the Government still considers a long bored tunnel too expensive, a report would be produced on short and long tunnel options for Stonehenge � to be considered in August by the Ministers involved. Could this indicate an intention to review the matter? (The report would not be a public document though its content would be published in the Environmental Statement.)

At the same meeting, the National Trust stated that its current position was to wait for more details on tunnel options before deciding whether it could agree to what is being proposed.

Since then Highways Agency has looked at possible locations for long bored tunnel portals with representatives of concerned organisations, including ICOMOS-UK. This is the first step in working up a comparative option for the report to Ministers and for the Environmental Statement.

English Heritage has recently expressed the view that we have moved on since production of the Halcrow and CSERGE Reports of 1998. (These reports were commissioned to advise on the way forward on the roads at Stonehenge and not taken fully into account by the authorities' Master Plan of September 1998.)

Certainly things have moved on since the production of the Master Plan. We now have a governing Management Plan that is largely compatible with the findings of Halcrow and CSERGE. And we are beginning to see some movement towards the aims of the Management Plan in the requirement that the Highways Agency assess bored tunnels � but this is by no means enough. The Management Plan makes it clear that the consensus is for a tunnel across the Stonehenge 'Bowl', an area it defines as extending from King Barrow Ridge to Longbarrow Crossroads.

Moreover there remains considerable local support for a southern route for the A303 that could double as the northern bypass for Salisbury (the 'Parker Plan'). Rescue member Richard Wort, who is interested in astronomy at Stonehenge, has written to Rescue arguing for re-routing the roads right outside the WHS.

Further discussions about the issue of visitor-access to the WHS landscape have taken place and one hopes that wide consultations with archaeologists, local people and others will follow before another bid is made for Lottery funding for the proposed new visitor-centre at Countess.

It would be wrong to suppose that final decisions on access to the WHS landscape can be made before we know for certain what will happen to the A303.

Any short tunnel scheme would apparently require a new track for non-tunnel traffic (horses, cycles and walkers) from the proposed new grade separated junction currently being considered at Longbarrow Crossroads. It has been suggested that the track could run alongside and south of the newly-dualled A303 cutting west of Stonehenge. Passing over the western tunnel portals, it would then continue along the old line of the A303, whence, from King Barrow Ridge, it would descend into Amesbury via Stonehenge Road. This would be a popular route for visitors wishing to avoid the visitor centre at Countess and enjoy the present view of Stonehenge from the road that is prized by many of those objecting to any tunnelling at all.

There would, however, be more flexibility of choice in access, and better opportunities for safeguarding the vulnerable chalk grassland of the WHS, if the long tunnel were implemented. The 'above-ground' route for non-tunnel traffic could also be used as a quiet and pleasant visitor-transit route right across the WHS to Longbarrow Crossroads, with the possibility of an extension to Fargo, west of and closer to Stonehenge. The enjoyment of visitors would be greatly enhanced and the potential for choices in drop-off and pick-up points increased; there would, incidentally, be no need to create new, hardened tracks for visitor-traffic within the WHS.

The Government's multi-modal transport studies are now seen by road transport campaigners to have 'failed to produce sustainable transport alternatives, and have simply rubber-stamped previous road-building schemes'. The road protest group Road Alert! is planning to re-form and the A303 tunnel at Stonehenge is being considered for one of their possible target projects (Local Transport Today, 25 April 2002, p.7).

The Environmental Statement and Draft Orders for the A303 scheme are due this December or in January 2003. There is already pressure from objectors for a full Planning Inquiry, rather than a Side Road Orders Inquiry. A strong case could be made for a combined Public Inquiry on the roads and the visitor centre. The amount of public interest and funding involved demands that all aspects of the case are heard both openly and thoroughly.

Kate Fielden
May 2002

(Reproduced with kind permission of the author from Rescue News, the newsletter of Rescue - The British Archaeological Trust.)