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Wiltshire Branch |
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Update of the Stonehenge Saga since 2008 The revised Stonehenge Management Plan was published in January 2009 and provides an excellent guide to management of the World Heritage Site (WHS). The Plan gives full recognition of the need for protection of the WHS landscape as a whole and sets out the attributes which give it its outstanding universal value (OUV). CPRE Wiltshire is represented on the Stonehenge Advisory Forum which helped to formulate the Plan. In responding to the 2008 consultation on options for a suitable location for a new visitor centre, CPRE Wiltshire suggested Rollestone Camp or Greenland Farm, where there would be little or no impact on the WHS landscape. English Heritage decided, however, to site the new facilities at Airman's Corner, at the western boundary of the WHS and in the open countryside of the Special Landscape Area. The planning application was advertised in October 2009. The proposed scheme has a number of laudable aspects to it. The A344/A303 junction would be closed and the A344 grassed over up to the henge. The remainder of the A344 would be downgraded to become little more than a visitor-transit access route from the new facilities at Airman's Corner (at the junction of the A344 with the A360). The ghastly pedestrian tunnel entrance to the henge would be scrapped and the present facilities would be reduced to no more than a 'hub' providing shelter for security staff, emergency lavatories, and so on; while the car and coach parks would be removed, leaving only a small metalled area to the west of the henge for the visitor-transit system terminus. Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) would be placed on the A344 and on certain byways to ensure that motorised vehicles, apart from emergency, visitor-transit and farm traffic, would be excluded. It is the proposed works at the western end of the A344, largely concentrated at the SE quadrant of Airman's Corner and just inside the WHS boundary, that are of particular concern to CPRE WILTSHIRE and to which we objected, both in our own right and as members of the Stonehenge Alliance.* A 'landmark' visitor-centre building of two roughly square-shaped, single-storey 'pods', one of glass and one of wood, would sit beneath a shaped, propeller-style metal 'canopy' up to 8m high, supported on poles set at angles. The building, with its bright silver-grey roof, would sit across the dry valley which runs westwards to the Till, just south of the A344 and east of the A360. Owing to its extent and height, it would be prominent in critical views from footpaths and from the great Cursus monument whose western end is marked by the gap in the trees at Fargo Plantation. More visually prominent would be the 500-space car park, unscreened and just below the upstanding barrows on the ridge forming the south side of the dry valley. A 30-bay coach park would be set on the hill north of the A344 and east of the B3086. Tree screening is planned for the coach park but it would be about 15 years before it would hide the coaches. The junction at Airman's Corner would be re-aligned to form a roundabout. The new roundabout, as well as an enlarged roundabout at Longbarrow Crossroads, would be set about with sixteen 8m-high and twenty-one 12m-high lamp posts, respectively, in spite of the Stonehenge Management Plan's aim to reduce lighting that impacts on the night sky of the WHS. These two clusters of lights would lie on the approximate lines of the Stonehenge solsticial axis and the equinoctial axis of the Stonehenge Cursus monument. It would be hard to argue against the obvious improvements the scheme would bring to the heart of the World Heritage Site, around the henge itself; and the new facilities at Airman's Corner would provide much-needed room for educational and exhibition purposes as well as refreshments. On the face of it, the scheme provides a practical solution that ought not to inconvenience local people overmuch. The applicants and others are quick to argue that the advantages of the scheme outweigh the disadvantages. It is, however, when one looks at the planning framework for the World Heritage Site and the 'high quality' countryside of the Special Landscape Area, that the scheme fails to meet the very strict criteria that flow from the World Heritage Convention into planning guidance and Local and Structure Plan Policies for the WHS, and ought also to protect the Special Landscape Area. The photomontages provided with the application give no clear impression of the impact the car and coach parks would have on the open landscape and monuments of the western part of the WHS: over an area three times larger than the car park at the henge, the glinting vehicle roofs would be visible for long distances. Under the World Heritage Convention, the UK Government is committed to protection and rehabilitation of the World Heritage Site as a place of 'Outstanding Universal Value' (OUV). The attributes which contribute to the OUV of the Stonehenge WHS include the monuments and their visual and spatial interrelationships throughout the WHS. Protection of the OUV of a WHS doesn't mean improving one part of the site at the expense of another. The applicants themselves admit that the scheme would have adverse impacts on the OUV of the WHS by impairing the settings of key monument groups, including the Cursus and the Winterbourne Stoke barrow group. If this is the case, why did English Heritage promote the scheme? We are told that the facilities are to be constructed in time for the Olympics in 2012 and that they will be 'reversible'. Although they are intended to be of an 'interim' nature, the Environmental Statement indicates that the visitor centre building alone will last for more than 25 years. The scheme is seen as 'affordable', and one for which the funding (including £10m from the Treasury and £5m from the HLF) is substantially secured. CPRE Wiltshire, while admitting the benefits of the scheme, objected to the adverse visual impacts it would have on open countryside, where development would not normally be permitted, and on a part of the WHS and its Outstanding Universal Value. We also objected, as a member-organisation of the Stonehenge Alliance, to the Council's Appropriate Assessment of the scheme's impact on two Special Areas of [nature] Conservation which are protected under European law. We asked for the application to be called in for a public inquiry, seeing this as the only fair way of deciding the outcome of the application, but this was refused. Wiltshire Council's Strategic Planning Committee considered the scheme on 20 January 2010. The committee expressed approval of the application, deferring and delegating a decision to Officers, pending resolution of issues raised by the Stonehenge Alliance's solicitor concerning the Council's Appropriate Assessment of impacts on nearby Special Areas of Conservation (The River Avon and Salisbury Plain). Planning permission has still not been given for English Heritage's new visitor-facilities (6 June 2010). A decision awaits resolution of issues arising from our solicitor's letter (19 January) to Wiltshire Council on the matter of its Appropriate Assessment. The Council's reply to that letter, dated 21 May 2010, is currently being considered by the Alliance's solicitor. Meanwhile, the Council has advertised its intention to place Traffic Regulation Orders on the A344 - once it is stopped up at its junction with the A303 - and on certain byways that are accessed from it within the World Heritage Site. The negative local response to the proposed TRO on the A344 has led the Council to state that a Public Inquiry will be held into the matter, probably this autumn. Once any planning permission for the visitor-facilities scheme has been granted, the proposed stopping up of the A344/A303 junction will be referred to the Secretary of State. That proposal would then be advertised for consultation and, if the response to the TRO is anything to go by, there may again be a substantial local objection, leading to a possible second Public Inquiry that would precede that into the TRO. All of these delays indicate that completion of the new visitor centre scheme in time for the 2012 Olympics would now be quite a challenge. Given the now very tight construction schedule and in view of the present economic climate, the Stonehenge Alliance has written to Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt, asking him to consider putting the whole scheme on hold in order to give time to consider alternative and more sensitive proposals that would better respect the archaeological landscape of the WHS. We have pointed out that it would be more economical in the short term to make immediate improvements to the present facilities at Stonehenge which have long been allowed to decline. *The Stonehenge Alliance is supported by: Ancient Sacred Landscape Network; Campaign for Better Transport; Campaign to Protect Rural England Wiltshire; Friends of the Earth; and RESCUE: The British Archaeological Trust 
Stonehenge Update, 25 February 2008 The following text is by Kate Fielden (CPRE Wilts Branch representative on the Stonehenge Advisory Forum: see below). It will be published much as it stands in Rescue News 104 (Spring 2008) On 6 December 2007 the Department for Transport announced that the A303 Stonehenge Improvement scheme had been scrapped in its entirety, owing to the by now unjustifiable expense of the project (some £540m). This is good news for environmentalists and archaeologists who have been campaigning for well over a decade for ways to improve the surroundings of Stonehenge that would not, as would the A303 scheme, involve major damage across the heart of the World Heritage Site (WHS). The DfT’s announcement also contained a commitment to examine the case for closure of the A344/A303 junction and, in its conclusion, states: ‘The Government remains committed to working with stakeholders in investigating options for improving the environment of Stonehenge, including new visitor facilities, and exploring possible small scale measures to improve traffic flows and safety along this section of the A303.’ Ministers have made it clear that they would like to see improvements in place at Stonehenge in time for the Olympics in 2012. The implication is that if this goal is not attained, HMG may lose interest in the Stonehenge Project and walk away from it. So – are there likely to be any difficulties? Some are convinced that more than Olympic hurdling would be needed to reach agreement, within four years, on a multi-faceted problem that has festered without satisfactory solution for over three decades. A series of recent comments (‘Stonehenge: Now what?’: British Archaeology, March/April 2006, pp.10–15) illustrates continuing lack of agreement on what was wrong with the A303 scheme for Stonehenge. The notion that the WHS will in some way be damaged by non-implementation of the road scheme still seems to prevail in the minds of some politicians who apparently misunderstand the impact that it would have had on the WHS landscape and its archaeology. There are other worrying signs of little underlying change. Culture Minister Margaret Hodge has informed us that the Stonehenge project board, ‘which includes all key stakeholders’, met on 10 December 2007 (ibid, p.11). We don’t know who all of these stakeholders are but, if the previous Stonehenge Project set up is anything to go by, they may be assumed to be largely those in whose power it is to effect changes within the WHS – that is to say, not necessarily those whose priorities are the best interests of the WHS. The Minister goes on to say that ‘English Heritage is drawing up options and it is our intention to deliver a new visitor centre which will endure for at least 20 years. We can do this if everybody is prepared to work together constructively and creatively, and I am encouraged by the start we have made.’ Certainly encouraging words if a new approach is seriously under consideration. But to those who have become, perhaps, a little cynical after years of battling against inappropriate and unworkable schemes devised by English Heritage and other ‘key stakeholders’, our own inclusion in discussion at the earliest stage would have been welcomed. Already, two months after the 10 December meeting, less-empowered stakeholders who make up the ‘Stonehenge Advisory Forum’ have found themselves excluded from the latest thinking. Formerly members of a discussion group involved in the preparation of the current Management Plan (2000), these individuals represent interested local and national bodies and are now involved in preparation of the revised Management Plan. Nevertheless, at its first meeting on 13 February 2008 this presumably important group was not informed about the Highways Agency’s findings on the potential impact of closure of the A303/A344 junction; nor of English Heritage’s options for discussion about a new visitor centre. Decision-making within the framework of the current Management Plan did not seem to be envisaged. What was made clear was that the revised Management Plan was to provide a framework for whatever scheme the Stonehenge Project Board comes up with, rather than one within which appropriate choices for the future of Stonehenge might be made. This, sadly all-too-familiar, rather patronising and non-inclusive approach is one that ought to be reconsidered if there is to be any hope of making progress of the kind the Minister hopes for. One small signpost to progress, however, was noted in Ministers’ requirement that current Management Plan Objectives 1–3 are to be retained in the revised Plan: these point to the need to manage the WHS as a whole and as a cultural landscape. This is the term which all stakeholders (including English Heritage and the DCMS) agreed in 2000 as best describing the Stonehenge landscape, even though Stonehenge was nominated before the official ‘Cultural Landscape’ category of WHS was devised by UNESCO. Significantly, this term was found to be inconvenient to English Heritage and the DCMS at the A303 Inquiry, since the road scheme threatened harm to the landscape of the whole WHS: consequently they failed to use it. It is not unreasonable to fear that an attempt may be made to change the Minister’s directive and remove the term from the revised Stonehenge Management Plan. The years of troubled debate and coercive, secretive and divisive decision-making about the future of Stonehenge have highlighted the intractable problems that inevitably arise from political initiatives governed by economic considerations, short-sighted ambition and bully-boy tactics. We must hope still to learn from these mistakes. It would obviously not be impossible to put in place some significant improvements at Stonehenge in time for the Olympics; but these ought to arise from sensible and realistic aims, and be based on consensus and sustainability. The remarkable outcome of the A303 planning conference in 1995 ought not to be forgotten – when 199 delegates agreed 16 resolutions in just five days (Robin Wilson, ‘A303 Trunk Road Amesbury to Berwick Down Planning Conference 6–10 November 1995’, Chairman’s Report). To begin with, all those taking part in the revision of the Management Plan should be involved in the primary decision-making process, for the two must logically go together. To separate them, as before, could again lead to disaster. At the same time, the National Trust must be seen to play a role appropriate to its position as the major land-owner likely to be affected by whatever is proposed. We know that it is difficult to reach agreement on Stonehenge issues, so the indications are that a modest scheme involving staged improvements might be successful, beginning with non-controversial minor changes that are achievable before 2012. Obviously, agreement is needed on closure of the A303/A344 and suitable concomitant junction modifications. At present, this is the primary consideration; for without it, little improvement of any kind may be achieved. The time-consuming effort of finding a suitable new site for a ‘World Class’ visitor-centre, then submitting plans and testing them at Public Inquiry, and then building it, makes this a poor option in the time available. It would be more sensible to aim for improvements to the current visitor-facilities in the short term. Parking might be separated either immediately, or a little later on, to a suitable location west of Stonehenge, allowing a western access to the Stones along the remaining part of the A344. A light touch on the landscape should be the aim, not extensive new development within the WHS. While these improvements are carried out, a more permanent, longer-term visitor centre site might be sought outside the WHS, allowing access to different parts of the Site, in line with Management Plan aims. Park and ride should make use of existing roads and trackways and not involve new routes across the WHS landscape. In adopting a gentle approach, such as this, controversy and conflict would be less likely to arise and the subject – and realisation – of improvements at Stonehenge would, at long last, provide a model for other World Heritage Sites – as it should have done all along. |
| CPRE, Wiltshire Branch,
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