UK: Authorities greenlight road tunnel construction near Stonehenge despite opposition

The British government on Friday gave a go ahead to the construction of a road tunnel near the historic Stonehenge in southwestern England. This decision to build a road tunnel has come two years after campaigners won legal battle to throw out project permissions that would include digging new 3.3 kilometre tunnel running past Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The project is worth USD 2.2 billion. It is aimed at easing congestion on an existing main road to southwest England. The road gets especially busy during the peak holiday periods.

Grant Shapps, who was transport minister in 2020, had initially authorised the project in 2020. The authorisation came in spite of a panel of planning experts warning of "permanent, irreversible harm" to the area.

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The decision was successfully challenged in the High Court in the next year.

However, while delivering the verdict, the court stressed that its ruling was not on the merits of the scheme but on the legality of the minister's granting of approval.

Mark Harper, Schapps' successor, has given fresh approval in 64-page fresh approval. He has said that he was "satisfied" that the project's "harm on spatial, visual relations and settings is less than substantial and should be weighed against the public benefits".

Those who oppose the plan have warned against the massive engineering project soon to start in an area full of archaeological treasures around the standing stone. The UNESCO has even said that the site could lose its World Heritage Site status if construction goes ahead.

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Steve Gooding, head of the RAC motoring group, indicated that opponents of the project will likely mount another legal challenge.

"This saga is starting to feel almost as old as the stones themselves and it's not over yet," Gooding said.

The Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument. It is located on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire in England. The structure has an outer ring. It is made of vertical sarsen standing stones. Information available in public domain suggests that each of this stone is around 13 feet highand seven feet wide. Each of the stones weighs around 25 tonnes. These stones are topped by horizontal lintel stones.

Inside, there is a ring of smaller bluestones.

The whole monument is now is in ruinous condition. It is believed by the archaeologists that stonehenge was constructed between 3000 BC to 2000 BC. Radiocarbon dating analysis suggests that first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC.

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