Whilst Government’s enthusiasm for a short bored tunnel remains undimmed, enthusiasm for our campaign to save our most significant neolithic landscape continues to grow.  Below is our recent letter to our petitioners, which we wish to share more widely.

Dear Supporter,

A huge thank you to everyone who has signed our petition to support our campaign. We now have over 17,000 signatures (as at the end of July), which has already led to some success: prompted by our campaign, UNESCO stated publicly that it is monitoring the road scheme very closely. But UNESCO’s concerns need to be backed up by an even greater groundswell of objections.

Since setting up our petition we would like to share two important developments.

First, the new Government’s resolve to proceed with the A303 Expressway past Stonehenge and its 2.9km tunnel with portals inserted in the World Heritage Site remains undimmed. This is despite massive cuts to other public services. We have been told by the Secretary of State, John Whittingdale, that 2.9km is to be considered its minimum length. However no increase to the budget to pay for a longer tunnel was announced this month.

Second is the exciting discovery of a Mesolithic Site on the eastern edge of the World Heritage Site. It predates Stonehenge by thousands of years and any road engineering nearby would threaten its highly sensitive archaeology. This extraordinary discovery, as well as the findings of other archaeological projects in the Stonehenge landscape, highlight the absolute necessity for a solution that avoids the whole World Heritage Site.

So we are emailing you to go one step further. Please can you recruit friends, family and colleagues to sign our petition https://you.38degrees.org.uk/…/save-stonehenge-world-herita…?

And if you can spare the time, please can you write to UNESCO and the National Trust via our website http://stonehengealliance.org.uk/act-now/?

Thanks again for getting behind this campaign. Please carry on spreading the word about Stonehenge world Heritage Site under threat.

With best wishes,
The Stonehenge Alliance

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