High court victory for Stonehenge campaigners as tunnel is ruled unlawful

Campaigners including archaeologists, environmental groups and druids have won a high court battle to prevent a controversial road project that includes a tunnel near Stonehenge. The court found that Shapps did not properly consider alternative schemes, as the law requires him to do, and that the decision-making process included no evidence of the impact on each individual asset at the world-famous historic site. Campaigners from Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site, who challenged Shapps's decision, said the court ruling "Should be a wake-up call for the government". They said: "We could not be more pleased about the outcome of the legal challenge. The Stonehenge Alliance has campaigned from the start for a longer tunnel if a tunnel should be considered necessary." "Ideally, such a tunnel would begin and end outside the world heritage site. But now that we are facing a climate emergency, it is all the more important that this ruling should be a wake-up call for the government."It should look again at its roads programme and take action to reduce road traffic and eliminate any need to build new and wider roads that threaten the environment as well as our cultural heritage. A panel of expert inspectors recommended that development consent be withheld because the project would substantially and permanently harm the integrity and authenticity of the site, which includes the stone circle and the wider archaeology-rich landscape. After the ruling was made, the site's managers Historic England rued a "missed opportunity to remove the intrusive sight and sound of traffic past the iconic monument and to reunite the remarkable Stonehenge landscape, which has been severed in two by the busy A303 trunk road for decades".