RESCUE welcomes yesterday’s announcement that the proposed A303 Stonehenge bypass project has been cancelled.
The Stonehenge World Heritage Site is almost certainly this country’s most significant archaeological site. The dialogue around this proposed infrastructure project has polarised opinion and divided a number of communities – not the least of which is our own archaeological discipline. Of crucial concern has been the years of damaging discourse that has pitched the historic environment and those that seek to protect it, as being in opposition to the economic progress of the country. The arguments both for and against the project were far more nuanced than this discourse allowed and brought many organisations with competing interests into conflict. We sincerely hope that yesterday’s announcement can bring an end to this.
Rescue firmly believes that the historic environment can and should be a key driver to sensitive and well-considered design and development. Unfortunately no iteration of the Stonehenge scheme embraced these principles. We were presented with a succession of poorly-envisaged and increasingly penny-pinching and ill-conceived schemes which whilst respecting the core of the Stonehenge site, failed to properly address the surrounding landscape of which the stone circle is only a part. Recent archaeological works associated with this project have been conducted with skill and integrity, and have produced results which prove the wider landscape is of paramount importance. We look forward to not only seeing these results published in full, but also, and hopefully, seeing them kickstart a new dawn for research into this hugely significant archaeological inheritance.
