Representation by Nicky Galliers
- Date submitted
- 11 January 2019
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
As a History graduate, I studied Stonehenge and have a better than usual understanding of the area and its importance to the early history of the UK.
This scheme will irreparably damage the wider landscape around Stonehenge. We don't know everything that is there and if this road scheme is built, we will never know. Even at this early planning stage, damage has been done by the insertion of boring platforms, one right through an ancient pre-historic platform created by the earliest humans in the UK. This cannot be recovered. It is gone forever, before we fully understand it. Any further work WILL destroy valuable sites - it is an absolute guarantee.
UNESCO do not support such major work so very close to a World Heritage site. This status is supposed to protect such sites and should not be so ignored. It has that status for a reason and to ignore that is unconscionable.
As things stand, that part of the road is only busy a couple of days a year when more than average people are driving, i.e. Christmas Eve, first day of school holidays. I used to live nearby and travelled this road frequently and I found that traffic blockages are where a dual carriageway narrows back to one lane, NOT in the one lane sections. Therefore this tunnel proposes to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist.
By putting the road in a tunnel removes one of the iconic views of the UK. Views are, in other places, protected. Here that should also be the case. We, the public, should not have to pay an exorbitant price just to set eyes on the stones that are in the public care if the only way to actually have sight of the monument is to go via the visitor centre.
The UK can't afford the cost of the tunnel, in monetary terms - the cost is unjustifiable when the NHS needs more cash and services are pared back to the minimum in other areas. We also can't afford it in terms of what will be lost forever and the blight on the landscape that a massive tunnel and entrances will leave. This tunnel will always be there, and it will always serve as an embarrassment to the UK that we hold such an important site in such contempt that we would plough a tunnel through the most sensitive archaeology in the UK and the risks to the stones and other monuments of the construction work.
This road scheme will not 'save' Stonehenge - it will destroy it. Once destroyed, it can't be replaced or rebuilt - it will be gone. There is only one Stonehenge and one ritual landscape of this scope in the UK. We should be protecting all of it not ruining it.