is was
the so-called 'Battle of the Beanfield', which resulted in one of the
longest ever civil actions against the police, ending in the award of
£23,000 in damages.
We have dwelt at some length on the recent events surrounding
the question of access to Stonehenge. The has principally been as a means
of demonstrating the way in which the monument and its landscape are implicated
in a series of conflicts of interest between contemporary groups: English
Heritage, the National Trust, the local Council, the Druids, the travellers,
the military, archaeologists, and so on (Bender and Edmonds 1992). In
part, this serves to explain the vexed character of the present debate.
Over the years, solutions to the problems of the proximity of roads to
the monument and of the siting of visitor facilities have repeatedly foundered
on differences between these various communities. For instance, in 1992-3
an architectural design by Edward Cullinan for a visitor centre screened
by trees at Larkhill was approved, but the plan was refused by Salisbury
District Council (Sudjic 1993).
The present plan for a tunnel
At present a two-lane road, the A344, passes within a few metres of the
northern boundary of the stone circle at Stonehenge. The A303, a major
but also two-lane road, comes within 200 metres of the opposite side of
the stone circle. The junction of the A344 and A303 lies 600 metres to
the east of the circle (see Figure 2). The stone circle stands at the
centre of a World Heritage site, in a depression known as the Stonehenge
Bowl. The A303 enters the World Heritage site from the east at Countess
Roundabout and from the west at Longbarrow cross-roads. Almost five and
a half kilometres of the A303 lie within the World Heritage site. An agreement
to close and turf over the first two kilometres of the A344 was reached
in the early 1990s, but no agreement on how to deal with the A303 was
achieved at that time.
In 1997 the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
published a report which set out a range of alternative improvements to
the A303 identified by a joint working party whose members were drawn
from the Highways Agency, English Heritage and the National Trust (Tunnel
Vision 1997). Several alternative tunnel routes were considered, including
a short or long tunnel on the present route of the A303, and long or short
tunnels taking the A303 further north (see Figure 2). Flexibility was,
and is, limited by the Highways Agency's practice of building short stretches
of dual carriageway on existing trunk roads resulting, in this case, in
a 'gun barrel' aimed along the route of the A303 at either side of the
World Heritage site (Brian Davidson, interview 15/3/99).
The Stonehenge Master Plan, published in September 1998,
sets out the current proposal by English Heritage and the Highways Agency
to build a 2 km. cut and cover tunnel following the existing route of
A303. The tunnel is intermediate in length compared to the short ('yellow')
and long ('EHNT4') cut and cover tunnels on this route envisaged in 1997.
The Master Plan claims that the cut and cover tunnel is 'the only scheme
deliverable'. The entire cost is available from government, making it
one of only two currently authorised trunk road improvements costing over
£100 million. The cost is said to be £125 million (Master
plan 1998: 3). Geoffrey Wainwright reports the Prime Minister has said
that the government cannot afford the £300 million required to construct
a deep bore tunnel. Wainwright considers the cut-and-cover tunnel will
achieve the principle objective of enabling visitors to roam across the
landscape around Stonehenge. Consultation with 40 organisations took place
in February 1999 through the medium of focus groups. The results of this
consultation will be published at the end of March. The Highways Agency
is chairing discussion of the A303's conversion to a dual carriageway
and placing it in a cut and cover tunnel. The alternative of a deep bore
tunnel is not being considered. The preferred route of the tunnel will
be announced by the Minister, Chris Smith, at the 