Representation by Nick Orson
- Date submitted
- 11 December 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I write as a visitor to, and a traveller past, the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, which I have known for over sixty years.
I oppose the scheme in its present form on the following grounds:
It is a poor piece of civil engineering. It fails provide a tunnel of adequate length or alternative surface routes to bypass the World Heritage Site. The 24 km Laerdal Tunnel in west Norway indicates how long modern road tunnels can be. The Stonehenge scheme is pathetically inferior.
It will permanently scar a valuable landscape many thousands of years old, blight it with noise, and finally draw in more traffic to create worse congestion. The motorway through Twyford Down near Winchester already illustrates these effects well. At times almost impassable due to congestion, it has failed even a simple road.
The scheme will destroy the irreplaceable archaeology of the World Heritage Site, either directly of by loss of context. It is accordingly opposed by UNESCO and a range of independent archaeological authorites.