Stonehenge tunnel campaigners plan to fight on, despite court defeat

Campaigners opposed to controversial plans to build a tunnel through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site today pledged to take their legal battle to the Court of Appeal. The government plans 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. Campaign group Stonehenge Alliance has been fighting the plans for years, winning a 2021 judicial review forcing the government to reconsider the plans. But in July last year, after looking again at the proposal, the government again chose to give the project the go-ahead. Stonehenge Alliance challenged the decision at a trial in December last year, but this morning High Court judge Mr Justice Holgate dismissed their case. In a statement issued just after the ruling, Stonehenge Alliance said it plans to challenge the decision at the Court of Appeal. Historian and podcaster Tom Holland, the president of the Stonehenge Alliance, said: “This is a devastating loss, not just for everyone who has campaigned against the government’s pig-headed plans for the Stonehenge landscape, but for Britain, for the world, and for subsequent generations.” Stonehenge Alliance said it plans to raise £15,000 to fund an application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, and a further £40,000 if it is granted a full hearing. The group may have an uphill battle. The High Court case in December was a so-called “rolled-up hearing” in which the judge considered both permission to bring the challenge and the challenge at the same time. Holgate J ruled that their points were “unarguable” and refused them permission to bring the challenge. Even so, in its statement, the Stonehenge Alliance pointed out that the court postponed considering one of its points pending a separate court decision. That point relates to the cumulative effect of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the project. The same point is already being considered by the Court of Appeal in a case case brought by campaigner Andrew Boswell, who is fighting government plans to upgrade parts of the A47 in Norfolk. The case was heard last month and a judgment is expected in the next few weeks. Despite this, the campaign group said it must “apply for permission to appeal now, and cannot wait for the judgement on Andrew Boswell’s case”. Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site Ltd and another v Secretary of State for Transport [2024] EWHC 339 (Admin) Administrative Court (Holgate J) Image © Shutterstock