In December 2014 the then coalition UK Government announced to great fanfare that the decades long saga of the on-again-off-again A303 Stonehenge Tunnel project would be revived once more.
The sound of zombie horses attempting the crawl away from yet another flogging pervaded the World Heritage Site, as first Deputy Prime Minister Clegg then Prime Minister Cameron descended on Stonehenge accompanied by the usual press, TV and English Heritage top brass.
A previous version of the project, estimated at £400M, had been cancelled several years earlier by a Government of a different colour on the basis of the cost, so it was somewhat surprising to learn that its reanimated corpse was now expected to require an eye-watering £1.7B – £2.5B.
To be fair, according to the plan this time the tunnel will be fully bored rather than cut-and-cover and will be somewhat longer. Not long enough, mind you, to go the full distance from the eastern edge of the World Heritage Site all the way to the western edge.
Instead, it will put its portals in the ground well inside the area of Outstanding Universal Value, obliterating whatever might be in the way.
A brand new dual carriageway will run from the western portal across 1k of farmland, sunk into a trench around 9m deep and 50m wide, to a new junction with the A360 at Longbarrow Roundabout.
At the eastern portal, the new dual carriageway will emerge to soar over the current A303/A345 junction at Countess Roundabout on a 10m high flyover, bringing 60mph HGV traffic noise to the delighted locals.
Almost 10 years on from the announcement, here’s where we are.
After an Enquiry in Public (where the independent Examiners decided against the whole idea), a doleful procession of vacant-eyed Secretaries of State for Transport (some of whom lasted less than 2 months in the job), a determination by one of them to approve the scheme’s Development Consent Order despite UNESCO’s and many others’ misgivings, a Judicial Review into that decision which found the Sec. of State had acted “irrationally” in doing so, then a “re-determination” of the application by a subsequent incumbent which again gave approval, and a further legal challenge (recently lost by anti-tunnel campaigners), we are now awaiting an impending appeal against that ruling.
Over a quarter of a million people have signed petitions against the scheme, crowdfunding an expensive ongoing legal process to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
UNESCO have threatened that Stonehenge World Heritage Site may be placed on the World Heritage in Danger register (a precursor to delisting) if the scheme goes ahead in its present form.
In the event that the tunnel does get built – estimated costs are now above £3B, and look likely to rise even more over the 5 years the build is optimistically slated to take – one certain outcome is that the casual view of a 4,500 year old global icon of prehistory from the A303 will be lost forever.
From being something freely glimpsed in the magnificent early dawn light surrounded by mist as you crest King Barrow Ridge making your way westwards, or appearing unexpectedly nearby, glowing rose-golden in the rays of the setting Sun as you head past it eastwards, it will become an experience only available to those who are either willing and able to pay the ever-increasing entrance fee or are lucky enough to be capable of walking the couple of miles from the nearest available parking or bus stop.
Meanwhile Stonehenge looks on impassively, perhaps whispering to those who will listen that humanity’s obsession with getting to the next traffic bottleneck a whole 8 minutes faster really may not be worth the cultural, let alone the financial, cost in the long run.
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