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Tuesday 10th December 2002
A303 Stonehenge Tunnel Announcement -
Statement by the Council for British Archaeology
Responding to today's announcement by the Department for Transport that the upgrade of the A303 at Stonehenge will take the form of a 2.1 kilometre bored-tunnel, George Lambrick, Director of the Council for British Archaeology said:
"This is significantly better than the Government's original plan of an even shorter cut-and-cover tunnel. We are pleased to see the commitment to the tunnel: while much of the rest of the Government road programme will just generate more traffic, this scheme really does deliver environmental improvements. But it isn't really visionary. Half the World Heritage Site will still be subject to increased intrusion from the new road scheme, and on present plans most people will be accessing Stonehenge from right next to the tunnel portal."
"The benefits of a tunnel removing roads from Stonehenge and its surroundings are not just for our generation or the next, but for countless more to come. At Stonehenge of all places - one of immense antiquity and Britain's premier international attraction - such decisions require a long-term vision of centuries or even millennia, not just decades. The Government was prepared to spend far more on the one year wonder of the Millenium Dome. Welcome though the decision is in many ways, it betrays the lack of real vision that bedevils the political process in trying to deliver serious long-term environmental and cultural benefits."
A fuller statement of the CBA's views on the various tunnel options can be found online here
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