A303 Stonehenge tunnel campaigners lose Court of Appeal challenge
They had appealed the legality of the decision making process for the project
Last updated 17th Oct 2024
Campaigners bidding to stop a planned, but now scrapped, tunnel for the A303 at Stonehenge would have lost a legal bid over the proposals, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) was appealing against a decision to refuse a challenge of approved plans to overhaul eight miles of the A303 from Amesbury to Berwick Down in Wiltshire.
At a hearing in July, SSWHS argued the approval for the development in July 2023 by Huw Merriman, then-minister of state for rail and HS2, breached a duty to act fairly.
But days later, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the Government "would not move forwards" with the project as she set out cuts to public spending.
The Department for Transport (DfT) had defended the appeal, and in a ruling yesterday (Wednesday 16th October), Sir Keith Lindblom, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, rejected SSWHS's bid.
The judges said the subject matter of the decision was "liable to generate controversy and debate", given Stonehenge's "cultural importance on both the national and international plain".
In the 60-page ruling, the judges said the decision was "not to gauge the environmental or societal merits of the development proposed" but was "concerned only with the lawfulness of the decision actually made".
The judges said they thought the department was "lawfully entitled" to approve the proposal, adding that the scheme was "directed at two significant problems", notably the "high levels of traffic congestion on that stretch of the A303" and the "presence in the World Heritage Site of a major road on which movement of vehicles is both visible and audible from the henge".
The court heard the project was approved by the previous government despite warnings from officials that it would cause "permanent, irreversible harm" and "would introduce a greater physical change to the Stonehenge landscape than has occurred in its 6,000 years as a place widely acknowledged of human significance".
SSWHS said during the hearing in July, the department's "approach to environmental impact assessment was unlawful in relation to the cumulative effect of greenhouse gas emissions from the development consent scheme and other committed road schemes".
James Strachan, representing the department, said Mr Merriman "was provided with no further advice on this issue" of harm to Stonehenge.
Previously, the National Highways' plan was quashed by the High Court in July 2021, due to concerns about the environmental impact on the site.
However, two years later the tunnel was approved by the DfT.
SSWHS brought further legal action against the department in December 2023 after the plan was re-approved by the then-government, the court heard.
In the ruling, the judges said that "in controversy and debate reasonable views may differ" and that "so too, when the Secretary of State is determining an application for development content, the scope for a reasonable exercise of planning judgment on the issues for him to resolve is broad".
Chair of the Stonehenge Alliance, John Adams, says they're disappointed by the ruling:
"This decision in effect gives the deciding minister for any project within a World Heritage Site even more power to interpret the World Heritage convention as they deem fit really.
"We feel that there are important principles of law that need to be addressed - such as how much information should a minister need to make a decision. It's no good having a two or three page summary when thousands of documents have been submitted."
A National Highways spokesperson said:
“The legal process is ongoing and we have noted the Court of Appeal’s judgement.”