Campaign group Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS), has applied for a judicial review of transport secretary Marker Harper's decision to allow a new dual carriageway near the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.
Harper granted the development consent order (DCO) for a two-lane dual carriageway for the A303 in July 2023, against the advice of the Planning Inspectorate.
The scheme has already faced one setback as the High Court had previously ruled that the consent was unlawful, but Harper redetermined the application and allowed it. Now the 13-kilometre road scheme may be heading back to the courts as SSWHS says the redetermination is also unlawful.
According to Leigh Day, the law firm representing SSWHS, the campaigners say that it was unfair for the application to be redetermined without a reopened public examination, and that Stonehenge risks being de-listed as a World Heritage Site if the scheme goes ahead.
John Adams, one of the three directors of SSWHS, and Chair of the Stonehenge Alliance, said: "The Government appears both blind and deaf to concerns about the damage it will perpetrate on this historic and much-loved landscape. It has ignored concerns raised by UNESCO and seems hell bent on bulldozing this scheme through before it gets thrown out of Government. We believe we have no choice but to launch a second legal challenge in the face of such belligerence".
Tom Holland, historian and president of the Stonehenge Alliance, said: "The Government is neglecting its duty of care to a landscape that is not just a precious part of Britain’s cultural patrimony, but the world’s. Nothing can justify such vandalism. I welcome this action, as a chance to halt a development that, if allowed to go ahead, will permanently and irreversibly desecrate the Stonehenge landscape".
Rowan Smith, solicitor at Leigh Day, said: "Our client is shocked that the Government appears not to have learnt from its mistakes and has repeated the decision to grant development consent for the Stonehenge road tunnel. Once again, the decision appears to have been made on an unlawful basis. Our client will argue that the failure to reopen the public examination a second time round was unfair and also a breach of human rights. We hope the Court will grant our client permission for a full hearing".
SSWHS re-launched a crowdfunder to fund the legal action shortly after the Government announced its decision.
