Representation by Dr. Barbara Brayshay
- Date submitted
- 11 December 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
My representation is concerned with the archaeological and environmental impacts of the proposed scheme damage to the landscape of the Stonehenge World Heritage site - one of the world’s most important prehistoric sites -
“a complex of monuments that provide an exceptional insight into the funerary and ceremonial practices in Britain in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Together with their settings and associated sites, they form landscapes without parallel.” (Outstanding Universal Value Criterion iii.)
The Stones are a part of a hugely rich archaeological landscape which is constantly revealing new insights into our pre-history as recent archaeological investigations at Durrington Walls and Blick Mead have shown. It is not just a ceremonial site, it sits within a landscape in which people lived, feasted and celebrated.
“a designation of an entire landscape. It’s one of the few places, not just in Britain but in the World, where you can see a special, sacred landscape developed over thousands of years.”
Importantly the 3km tunnel is to short within the 5km area of the Stonehenge landscape - this means that the planned site for one of the tunnel’s portals threatens one of Stonehenge’s most significant aspects: the direct line of sight from the stones to the setting sun on the winter solstice. Permanently disfiguring the site in this way is an act of inconceivable cultural vandalism. I add my voice to those of other archaeologists opposing the scheme together with that of The International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises World Heritage body Unesco, who said recently that the current design would have a “substantial negative and irreversible impact” on the Stonehenge site and contravene the protection given by World Heritage designation - HMG is a signatory to the 1972 World Heritage Convention and thus committed to protecting the whole World Heritage Site (WHS) and its setting
“Each State Party to this Convention recognizes that the duty of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage referred to in Articles 1 and 2 and situated on its territory [i.e., its designated World Heritage Sites], belongs primarily to that State. It will do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources and, where appropriate, with any international assistance and co-operation, in particular, financial, artistic, scientific and technical, which it may be able to obtain.”
The environmental impacts of the scheme are also considerable in terms of the damaging impact of road building expansion on wildlife and habitats. Such schemes do not make sense as a solution to traffic congestion - studies have shown there are several paradoxes in which the usual remedy for congestion—expanding the road system—is ineffective or even counterproductive – in short, we can’t build our way out of congestion - this road-widening project revives a discredited transport policy scrapped in the 1990s, based on the misunderstanding that building more and wider roads will relieve ccongestion
Permanently damaging the Stonehenge landscape with a misguided solution to traffic congestion is both an environmental and cultural travesty and should not go ahead.