Ministers ‘insufficiently informed’ about alternatives to Stonehenge tunnel project, lawyers say | Stonehenge

Ministers were “insufficiently briefed” by officials about alternative plans before approving a road tunnel under Stonehenge for the second time, campaigners’ lawyers have argued in the High Court in the latest legal attempt to stop the project.

Campaigners say the proposed 2.1-mile road tunnel, part of a new 8-mile dual carriageway for the A303 road and estimated to cost at least £2.5 billion, would destroy much of the heritage site around Stonehenge – including ancient monuments and listed buildings – and increase emissions.

The hearing is the latest chapter in a long legal battle since then Transport Secretary Grant Shapps gave the project the green light in 2020, a decision that was overturned by judges in 2021. In July 2023, then Transport Secretary Huw Merriman granted a second development consent order (DCO) on behalf of then Transport Secretary Mark Harper. Campaigners lost an initial High Court appeal against that decision in a judgment handed down in February.

In a three-day hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice that began on Monday, lawyers for the Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site alliance are seeking to appeal the judgment on up to eight grounds and are again seeking a judicial review of the Department for Transport’s decision.

Lawyers for the campaigners will focus on the advice given to ministers and whether the judge was right to rule that Merriman did not need to reconsider elements of Shapps’ original decision, which granted a DCO despite planning inspectors finding the scheme would cause “permanent and irreversible harm” to the area.

The appeal also argues that Merriman ignored new evidence that the project would jeopardise Stonehenge’s status as a world heritage site and acted unlawfully in his approach to international conventions.

Chief Justice David Wolfe, representing the activists, told the court at the opening: “It is the minister who is responsible for the decision, not his officials.”

Wolfe said: “We submit that the decision was made after an exercise that filtered too much out.” He added: “The minister misunderstood what we were asking for… partly because he was not informed of what we were asking for.”

Wolfe said this meant ministers had not personally considered other options, including longer tunnel options, but were simply satisfied that National Highways had looked at other options for the road and the bypass. “That’s not the same as them considering the merits of the alternatives,” he said.

Wolfe said some of the expert evidence submitted to the consultation “could have been a game changer for policy”. [but] has not been evaluated”.

The hearing continues until Wednesday.

National Highways, the project’s developer, said the tunnel and wider road project would remove traffic around Stonehenge. Traffic jams frequently occur on the short single-lane section of the A303, a major road to the southwest of England that is otherwise mainly dual carriageway.

Historic England, another co-defendant in the case, described the project as “a unique opportunity to restore this internationally important landscape”.

Unesco’s World Heritage Committee will meet in Delhi later this month to decide on a recommendation made in June to place Stonehenge on the endangered list, potentially bringing it closer to losing its World Heritage status altogether.

Campaigners have called on the new Labour government to abandon the project, regardless of the outcome of the trial. Tom Holland, historian, broadcaster and author, chairman of the Stonehenge Alliance, said: “Any project that is proven to be ineffective, hugely damaging and excessively expensive is doomed to failure. The new government should seize the opportunity to consign the Stonehenge tunnel to the dustbin where it belongs.”

The alliance will deliver a petition containing 240,000 signatures from 147 countries to Labour’s transport and culture secretaries on Monday afternoon, urging them to abandon or reconsider the project, possibly building longer and more remote tunnels from the site.