Cruel blow as challenge suffers setback
We are sorry to tell you that the case against the Stonehenge road widening scheme was unsuccessful. We have a glimmer of hope in that the ground on cumulative greenhouse gas emissions has been stayed (put on hold). It is dependent on the outcome of another case in the Court of Appeal.
Unfortunately, launching Save Stonehenge WHS’s appeal cannot wait for that ruling before otherwise they we will be out of time. That’s why they are seeking to raise more funding immediately to pay for the legal team’s work preparing for the appeal. Save Stonehenge WHS’s statement below.
Our campaign against this monstrous road scheme has suffered a set back, it’s not the end. But preparatory engineering work within the WHS is imminent, so there’s little time to lose.
Read our press statement in full.
Stonehenge Alliance quotes:
John Adams, chair of the Stonehenge Alliance and one of the 3 directors of SSWHS, said:
“In the face of Government indifference to the harm this road will cause the World Heritage Site, we had no choice but to bring this legal action. While this judgement is a huge blow and exposes the site to National Highway’s state sponsored vandalism, we will continue the fight. In the dying days of this Conservative Government, which has inflicted so much damage on the country, we cannot let it destroy our heritage as well.”
Tom Holland, historian and president of the Stonehenge Alliance, said:
“This is a devastating loss, not just for everyone who has campaigned against the Government’s pig-headed plans for the Stonehenge landscape, but for Britain, for the world, and for subsequent generations.”
Statement by co-claimant, Andy Rhind-Tutt:
When the politically motivated and pointless, exorbitant plans for a Stonehenge tunnel were announced on 1st Dec 2014 colossal amounts of taxpayers money started to be sucked into a black hole of consultants, contracts and electioneering spin. 9 years & £100’s of £millions later & still some MP’s believe destroying one of the worlds greatest un discovered landscapes, putting the river Avon at risk, destroying the livelihoods of the local community and removing a 5000 year old view of Stonehenge unless you pay, for the sake of arriving in Cornwall 8 minutes faster is worth it! How we have managed to allow this unnecessary scheme to carry on for so long is beyond comprehension!
Enough is enough now. Hopefully a final appeal and a change of government will at last stop this ridiculous waste of our money and enable a sound regional solution to be delivered at a fraction of the cost that supports sustainability, the needs of local people and not the political aspirations of MP’s who appear to have no care about the irreversible long term damage this scheme would do. Stonehenge was gifted to the nation, not National Highways! nor the Government and the solution is staring us all in the face and it’s not a tunnel.
Statement by Save Stonehenge WHS Ltd:
Unfortunately, Justice Holgate today dismissed our legal challenge of the Government’s approval (for a second time) of a damaging dual carriageway through Stonehenge World Heritage Site. While this is deeply disappointing news, the battle isn’t over and we will be appealing his ruling.
However, to do this we need your support as we have to raise another £15,000 immediately to seek permission to appeal. So please consider donating if you can and sharing the crowdfunder with your friends and family. If we are successful, we will need to then fundraise for the court hearing.
We have a glimmer of hope in that our ground on cumulative greenhouse gas emissions has been stayed (put on hold). It is dependent on the outcome of another case in the Court of Appeal. Unfortunately, we cannot wait for that ruling before launching our appeal or we will be out of time. That’s why we are seeking to raise more funding immediately to pay for our legal team’s work preparing for the appeal.
In the meantime, please sign the petition and encourage others to do so too. We’ve had over 236,000 signatures so far. It would be great if we could get to over a quarter of a million!
You can find out more about the campaign to stop the bulldozers on the Stonehenge Alliance website.
TAKE ACTION!
~ Support the appeal against the judgment ~
~ Sign our international petition to keep up the pressure ~
Notes
1. Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site is a limited company set up by three individuals closely associated with the Stonehenge Alliance to specifically challenge the original Government decision on 12 November 2020 to approve National Highways’ damaging scheme. SSWHS applied for a judicial review of the Government’s second approval of the scheme on 14 July, 2023 (six days before the Somerset and Frome by-election).
2. The first judicial review was held 23-25 June 2021, with the judgement being handed down by Mr Justice Holgate on 30 July 2021, quashing the Development Consent Order.
3. Mr Justice Holgate’s judgement While he dismissed SSWHS’s application, one of the grounds (The Secretary of State’s approach in relation to the cumulative effect of greenhouse gas emissions) is stayed subject to the outcome of Andrew Boswell’s hearing in the Appeal Court (Norfolk A47). However, SSWHS still need to apply for permission to appeal now and cannot wait for the judgement on Andrew Boswell’s case.
4. The three day hearing was held on 12-14 December at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. SSWHS was represented by Leigh Day and barristers David Wolfe KC (Matrix), Victoria Hutton and Stephanie David (39 Essex). It is argued that the grant of development consent was unlawful on the following grounds:
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- Given recent developments and key new evidence, it was procedurally unfair for the Secretary of State not to subject the re-determination to a full public re-examination
- It was irrational for the Secretary of State to give no weight to the risk that the scheme would result in Stonehenge having its World Heritage Status removed
- The Secretary of State failed to take certain obviously material considerations into account, including by failing to consider diverting the road around the Stonehenge site, despite such an alternative having a far lower impact in heritage terms
- The Secretary of State failed to properly assess the scheme’s climate change impact, owing to:
- applying roads policy which pre-dated the Net Zero target
- treating the draft new roads policy as immaterial
- ignoring the new national net zero strategy
- assessing emissions from this scheme alone, without factoring in the emission from the whole A303/A358 corridor upgrade in the south west peninsular
5. See UNESCO World Heritage Committee decision from its September 2023 committee meeting in Riyadh.
6. The Examination Report, dated 2 January, 2020 recommended that the application be refused. It was published on 12 November, 2020, when the Secretary of State made his first decision to approve the scheme.
7. The Stonehenge Alliance has two petitions, one for residents in the UK (38 Degrees) and one for people outside the UK (Change.org). The combined total stands at over 236,000 with signatures from at least 147 countries worldwide.
8. The Stonehenge Alliance supporter-organisations are: Ancient Sacred Landscape Network; Campaign to Protect Rural England; Friends of the Earth; Rescue, the British Archaeological Trust; and Transport Action Network.
9. The CrowdJustice page has a new interim target of £100,000. This is to raise the additional funds needed to make an application for permission to appeal (at the Court of Appeal). If a hearing is granted, the CrowdJustice target is likely to need to rise to around £140,000.
TAKE ACTION!
~ Support the appeal against the judgment ~
~ Sign our international petition to keep up the pressure ~
