Stonehenge tunnel gets green light from High Court

Campaigners opposing controversial plans to build a tunnel through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site lost their High Court battle today. The Department for Transport intends to widen part of the notoriously congested A303, putting it into a 3.3km-long tunnel where it crosses the World Heritage Site. The project is costed at around £2.5bn. However, campaign group Stonehenge Alliance argues the scheme will damage archaeology at the site and desecrate the landscape, and won’t significantly improve congestion on the road. The case went to court in December and, in a ruling handed down today, judge Mr Justice Holgate ruled that all of the campaign group’s grounds of claim were “unarguable” and dismissed them. The decision means the project can go ahead. This is the second time Stonehenge Alliance has brought the case to court, but the first time it has lost. In 2021 it won a judicial review quashing the plans. However, the government reconsidered its decision and reapproved the scheme in July last year. It is that decision that was being challenged in the December trial. Stonehenge Alliance’s lawyer, David Wolfe KC, argued that it was procedurally unfair for the Department for Transport not to have a public re-examination of the plans after the first decision was quashed by the High Court. He also argued that the secretary of state for transport did not properly consider whether the scheme would lead to Stonehenge losing its World Heritage status, and that a number of material and environmental considerations were ignored. Separately, the campaign group pointed out that the scheme has been pushed though by ministers against the advice of planning officials. Read more: Stonehenge tunnel campaigners plan to fight on Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site Ltd and another v Secretary of State for Transport [2024] EWHC 339 (Admin) Administrative Court (Holgate J) Image © National Highways