A campaign group has raised over £170,000 to fight the building of a road beneath Stonehenge.
The Stonehenge Alliance has been battling against National Highways’ proposal to update the road near the ancient monument for years.
The A303 in Wiltshire is not currently dualled causing constant bottlenecks when people slow down to catch a glimpse of the henge with the eight-mile journey taking over an hour at peak times.
National Highways is planning to build eight miles of dual-carriageway from Amesbury to Berwick Down. The tunnel itself will be two miles long, 200 metres south of Stonehenge.
The Government agency said it would remove the sight and sound of traffic passing the site and cut journey times.
The Stonehenge Alliance has been to court twice before to fight the plans, saying they will harm and dwarf the historic monument.
They have raised over £175,000 for legal fees and are hoping to raise £40,000 if they are given permission to appeal again.
Chairman of the Stonehenge Alliance, John Adams, told the Express: “It’s a tiny organisation, but we’re optimistic and we have to be. We think it’s the wrong scheme. We should be protecting this world heritage site for future generations.
“Previous attempts to construct a tunnel at Stonehenge have been cancelled due to escalating costs, nevertheless the government pushes on with this hugely expensive scheme which has a significantly lower benefit–cost ratio than is usual. It’s a bad deal for taxpayers and it won’t provide a strategic solution to the high volumes of traffic.
“We agree with the Planning Inspectorate who recommended against this scheme and said it will cause ‘permanent, irreversible harm’ to the world heritage site. Their recommendation has been ignored by two Transport Secretaries.”
But there are also many that support the £2.5bn scheme. Lots of locals are in favour of the proposed plans due to the traffic on the A303 pushing drivers onto rat-runs through villages, increasing accidents.
Andy Shuttleworth, from the village and a founding member of the Stonehenge Traffic Action Group, told the BBC: “We’ve had children injured in the past, we have cars regularly hit. Every weekend, we have a stream of police, fire, ambulance vehicles sorting out crashes. All that will go away with the solution being offered.”
English Heritage, the National Trust, and Historic England are also in support of the scheme. UNESCO, on the other hand, opposes it.
National Highways is currently in court against carbon campaigners fighting the plans. Transport Secretary Mark Harper said their position on the plans “was very clear”, but there is still the legal challenge over the carbon impact of the project.
If the environmental legal hurdle is cleared, National Highways expects construction of the tunnel to begin in 2025.
