High Court challenge launched over controversial road scheme near Stonehenge
Campaigners fighting to block a controversial road project which includes a tunnel near Stonehenge have launched a High Court challenge over the Government's decision to green-light the development.
Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) has applied to the court for judicial review of Transport Secretary Grant Shapps' decision to grant development consent to the project.
Mr Shapps gave the go-ahead for the ÂŁ1.7 billion plan to overhaul eight miles of the A303, including the two-mile tunnel, in November - despite advice from Planning Inspectorate officials that it would cause "permanent, irreversible harm'' to the Unesco World Heritage Site in Wiltshire.
A panel of expert inspectors recommended that consent should be withheld because the project would substantially and permanently harm the integrity and authenticity of the site, which includes the stone circle and the wider archaeology-rich landscape.
In a report to Mr Shapps, the officials said permanent, irreversible harm, critical to the outstanding universal value of the site, or why it is internationally important, would occur, "affecting not only our own, but future generations''.
The Department for Transport wrote to Highways England stating that: "The Secretary of State is satisfied that, on balance, the need case for the development together with the other benefits identified outweigh any harm.''
SSWHS will argue that the scheme is contrary to the Wiltshire Core Strategy and the requirements of the World Heritage Convention, and that Mr Shapps' decision to approve it was unlawful.
The campaign group will also contend that Mr Shapps' failure to consider whether giving the go-ahead for the project could amount to a breach of international obligations under the World Heritage Convention.
As of Wednesday, a crowdfunding page to fund the legal action had raised ÂŁ47,371 in donations.
Historian, author and broadcaster Tom Holland, president of the Stonehenge Alliance, whose supporters set up SSWHS to bring the legal action, said: "Bearing in mind the weight of opposition to the Government's plans for a highly intrusive road scheme through the Stonehenge landscape, it is hard to believe that the Transport Secretary has given them the green light.
"The Planning Inspectorate, after a painstaking, six-month investigation, advised against them.
"So too, appalled by the damage the Government's plans would inflict on a World Heritage Site, did Unesco.
"How the public feel can be gauged by the fact that over ÂŁ46,000 has been raised to take the Government to court over the plans in only a few weeks.
"Let us hope that the law can come to the rescue of a landscape that ranks as our most precious and sacred, and which the Government - to its eternal shame - is set on handing over to the bulldozers.''
Rowan Smith, solicitor for law firm Leigh Day who is representing the campaigners, said: "Our client strongly believes that the Secretary of State's approach to assessing the harm caused by this road scheme to the heritage assets in the Stonehenge area was unlawful, because he underestimated the overall impact by averaging it out and offsetting the purported benefits before appreciating the true extent of the damage.
"Our client will argue that, in doing so, the Secretary of State failed to follow national policy and breached international law under the World Heritage Convention.''
The tunnel is part of a ÂŁ1.7 billion investment in the A303 between Amesbury and Berwick Down.
The road, which is a popular route for motorists travelling to and from the South West, is often severely congested on the single carriageway stretch near the stones.
Highways England says its plan for a two-mile tunnel will remove the sight and sound of traffic passing the site and cut journey times.
But some environmentalists and archaeologists have voiced their opposition to the plan due to its potential impact on the area.
The project is classified as nationally significant, which means a Development Consent Order is needed for it to go ahead.
The Stonehenge site, together with Avebury, was declared by Unesco to be a World Heritage Site of Outstanding Universal Value in 1986 on account of the size of their megaliths, the sophistication of their concentric plans and their complexes of Neolithic and Bronze Age sites and monuments.