6 December 2007

World Heritage Site SAVED from roadbuilding scheme!

“...barbaric... No other country in the world would contemplate treating a site which is a world icon in such a way.” Lord Kennet

Picture by Ian Britton from FreeFoto.com

One of the world's most famous heritage sites, Stonehenge, was threatened by a massive and highly destructive road-building scheme:

The British Government's Department for Transport was planning to widen the A303 highway that runs close to the monument.
The result would effectively have been the "M303": a four-lane dual carriageway from London to the West Country cutting right through the heart of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.
Only the central 1.3-mile-long section of the new road nearest to the stone circle would have been in a tunnel. The other six miles of the highway would have been bulldozed at ground level, or in cuttings (deep trenches), through the priceless landscape around Stonehenge. Even with the tunnel, over two miles of brand new, four-lane highway would still have been bulldozed through the World Heritage Site.
Outside the tunnel, the World Heritage Site would have been split in two by a noisy and unsightly dual carriageway (four-lane highway), securely fenced and with long cuttings leading down to tunnel entrances, lit day and night.
The stone circle would not have been harmed, but its landscape setting would have been badly damaged and other important archaeological remains would have been destroyed.
The road, and a massive new visitor centre planned to go with it, would have had major ecological impacts and damaging effects on local communities.

The plan was finally scrapped
on Thursday, 6 December 2007.

Saving a few minutes of motorists' time
is less important than preserving 5000 years of history.

Thank you for helping us stop this!