Campaigners bidding to stop a planned but now scrapped road tunnel near Stonehenge would have lost a legal bid against the proposals, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) was appealing a decision to refuse a challenge to be approved plans to build a two-mile tunnel near the world famous landmark. It would have overhauled eight miles of the A303 from Amesbury to Berwick Down in Wiltshire.
At a hearing in July, SSWHS argued approval for the development in July 2023 by Huw Merriman, then-minister of state for rail and HS2, breached a duty to act fairly.
Days later, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the government “would not move forward” with the project as she set out cuts to public spending, including on a raft of infrastructure projects. The move to scrap the tunnel dismayed locals.
The Department for Transport (DfT) had defended the appeal and in a ruling on Wednesday (October 16) 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 their 60-page ruling, the judges explained that their job was “not to gauge the environmental or societal merits of the development proposed”, but to be “concerned only with the legality of the decision actually made”.
The judges said they thought the DfT was “lawfully entitled” to approve the proposal, adding the scheme was “directed at two significant problems”. These being 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 surrounding landscape than that which has occurred in its 6,000 year history.
SSWHS alleged during the hearing in July that the Department's approach to the 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 DfT, said Mr Merriman “was provided with no further advice on this issue” of harm to Stonehenge.
National Highways' plan had been quashed by the High Court in July 2021 over concerns about the environmental impact on the site. 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 their ruling, the judges said that “reasonable views may differ” and when the Secretary of State is determining an application for development consent the scope for a “reasonable” planning decision on the issues for them to resolve is “broad”.