Stonehenge: Proposed Road Alterations

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. There is no doubt that a tunnel under part of the site will protect that very part. Notwithstanding the concerns that have been raised about toxic gases that could be released by tunnelling through chalk—not something I am fit to comment on—I believe that part of the site will be preserved by digging deep down for a tunnel. However, regarding the tunnels, the widening of roads into dual carriageways and particularly the flyover on the eastern end of the site, I seek reassurance that at the very least we are doing everything in our power to ensure that we do not damage this precious environment and that, if we find we are doing so, we take other steps.

I wish to make three points in connection with the issues I have raised. The first is about the academic, archaeological response that has been made to the consultation, which it is only right to put on record. The second is the response of UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites to the proposals as they stand. The third is about the relationship we have with world heritage sites and how we might seek to develop that relationship in the future.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I, too, am a medieval historian, so I welcome my hon. Friend’s presence. I welcome the interest he has shown and some of the fascinating things he is saying about the stones. As well as considering those three reports, will he also consider the interests of the people of Wiltshire, Somerset and neighbouring areas who have for many years spent large parts of their time in a traffic jam alongside the stones? It has become entirely intolerable. Will he also consider the question of the way in which the stones are ruined by the presence of vast quantities of traffic above ground? Although we have, of course, listened to what he has to say about archaeology, surely we have to find a way of easing the traffic for local people and improving the environment of the stones.

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I am one of those people who have sat on the A303 on a hot summer’s day in stationary traffic with an agitated child in the back and a wife looking at me as though to say, “We should have taken a different route.” The last time I went on the A303 in summer, we were in stationary traffic for two hours because the President of the United States had decided he would visit Stonehenge that day. The security forces of the United Kingdom and the USA had bilaterally decided to stop everything going east and west without telling us what was going on. I fully acknowledge that there is a traffic problem on the A303 and that local residents have a right to ask for that problem to be solved. I am an Essex MP; I do not wish to go into alternative routes. I am seeking assurances from the Government that, whatever decision is made about where the road does or does not go, we have foremost in our minds a determination to preserve this completely unique environment.

First, I turn to the comments made by the group of 22 experts who have worked at Stonehenge over the past 10 years. They have raised particular concerns that the

“creation of new sections of dual carriageway and slip roads at each end of the tunnel, within the boundary of the WHS, would set a dangerous precedent by allowing large-scale destructive development within a WHS”.

I will turn to that point again in a moment. They also said:

“The construction of the portal at the west end…and new sections of road in its vicinity, would damage an area with an unusual and nationally important concentration of long barrows”

belonging to the millennium prior to Stonehenge. They said:

“The proposed new road would cut across the site of a settlement from the time of Stonehenge’s construction, perhaps where the builders of its Bronze-Age phase once lived…At the tunnel’s eastern end, construction of its portal may affect groundwater conditions which could harm nationally important Mesolithic remains at the site of Blick Mead.”

The 22 archaeologists are employed by UK universities. Many were employees of various universities or English Heritage when doing research at Stonehenge. Seven of them are members of the A303 Scientific Committee at Stonehenge. It is a very good thing, which was set up to ensure that the process gets good advice on limiting the damage of the current proposals. However, its remit does not extend to looking beyond that; those are the terms of engagement. Seven members of the scientific committee were sufficiently concerned to make their own submission to the consultation.

I do not know the best way of doing this, as I do not wish to read out all 22 names, but I hope they can be in some way included in the Official Report. [Interruption.] I am being told to read them into the record. They are: Professor Mike Parker Pearson, University College London; Dr Umberto Albarella, University of Sheffield; Dr Mike Allen, Allen Environmental Associates; Dr Barry Bishop, University of Buckingham; Professor Nick Branch, University of Reading; Dr Christopher Chippindale, University of Cambridge; Professor Oliver Craig, University of York; Dr David Field, formerly of English Heritage; Professor Charly French, University of Cambridge; Professor Vince Gaffney, University of Bradford; Paul Garwood, University of Birmingham; Professor David Jacques, University of Buckingham; Dr Nicholas James, University of Cambridge; Dr Joshua Pollard, University of Southampton; Professor Colin Richards, University of the Highlands and Islands; Dr David Robinson, University of Central Lancashire; Professor Peter Rowley-Conwy, University of Durham; Professor Clive Ruggles, University of Leicester; Dr Colin Shell, University of Cambridge; Professor Julian Thomas, University of Manchester; Professor Christopher Tilley, University College London; and Professor Kate Welham, University of Bournemouth.

They have concerns, and further concerns have been raised by a different body that worked on the Blick Mead archaeological site in the east. The principal concern there is about the water table, since the deoxygenated environment, as I have explained, is extremely helpful in preserving organic matter from a long time ago. They are concerned about two aspects of the proposed route: that the extension of dual carriageway could create additional weight on the road, squeezing water out of the site; and that the weight of the flyover could squeeze the soil down, again pushing water out.

Such concerns are understandable from a professional viewpoint, given that in 2000, an extraordinarily important Mesolithic site in North Yorkshire called Star Carr was damaged when drainage ditches—which, I believe, had been approved by heritage organisations—were cut through. That has caused irreparable damage to a truly remarkable site. For the record, the academic paper charting what happened at Star Carr can be found in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, November 2017, “Lessons from Star Carr on the vulnerability of organic archaeological remains to environmental change”. Within a short period from the changes being made to the Star Carr environment, irreparable and irreversible damage was done to its archaeology.

I was pleased to see in chapter 11 of the Highways England preliminary environmental information report that the potential impacts of the construction of the scheme at the eastern end—over the Countess roundabout—were being looked at. Some opportunities to avoid or mitigate the impacts by influencing the design of the proposed scheme were noted. However, from the information given in that document, it is very difficult to see exactly how Highways England has reached its conclusions. There is no account of what it envisages the weight of the road being, or the weight of the flyover. It is very difficult—indeed, impossible—to tell what minimisation looks like in this context. Does minimisation mean an absolutely negligible impact? I sincerely hope so. Either way, we deserve to have that information, so that we can ascertain whether the conclusion that the

“proposed scheme would have no likely significant permanent adverse effects”

is true, and if so, the extent to which it is true.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) a moment ago, I fully understand the need for some form of road improvement in the area. All I am asking for is an assurance that we are doing everything in our power to protect the archaeological environment.

[James Gray]

I am so sorry to interrupt once again. It really is the most interesting speech, and we are learning a great deal. My hon. Friend says in passing that some form of road improvement might be necessary. That matter has concerned the road traffic authorities and the people of Wiltshire for two or three generations. It goes right back to the first world war—that was the first time people started talking about what we were going to do about Stonehenge. Therefore, simply to say, “Oh, I’m very worried about the archaeology, and if we can’t save it we must find some other way of doing it,” is not enough. If he does not like the flyover at the Countess roundabout, what else does he propose?

[Alex Burghart]

I think I made it clear to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) that I am not a road engineer. I am a simple Member of Parliament with a historical and archaeological bent. The experts should find a means of answering such questions. It may be, for all I know, that they have already done so, but from the information that I have seen and that has been made available to the public, my concerns have not been allayed. Clearly, the archaeological community and international community have not had their concerns allayed either.

UNESCO and its sister group in the UK, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, have said on a number of occasions that the current proposals are not what they would wish. To quote UNESCO from earlier this year, the project is

“not adequate to protect the authenticity, integrity and Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property.”

In April of this year, ICOMOS said:

“ICOMOS-UK wishes to register a strong objection to these proposals in view of the substantial negative and irreversible impact we believe that the dual carriageways at both ends of the tunnel would have on the attributes of OUV of the WHS of Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites.”

Unless we can allay those fears, there is a danger that the status of the world heritage site will be affected. That would be extremely bad for us all, and is something that I am sure none of us wants, although I acknowledge that local MPs and local constituents will want improvements in the area.

I must put on the record the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) is here. As a Minister, he is unable to speak. I am very sorry he is in that position, because I know that he would want to raise a lot of issues on behalf of his constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Graham, for calling me. My intention was not to speak in the debate at all, not least because I am the MP for North Wiltshire, which is some 20 or 30 miles away from Stonehenge. My constituency therefore does not face the direct impact that will be suffered by, for example, the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen). He is, of course, prevented from speaking because of his rank as a Minister. Sadly, that rank has never come my way, although there is plenty of time left. One can never tell—it could be on its way.

I enjoyed immensely listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) introduce the debate. Even having studied Stonehenge for 20 years as an MP, and as a medieval historian for a great deal of time before that, I learned an enormous amount from his speech, and I congratulate him on it. There was a huge amount of interesting information there that I, for one, simply did not know, and he made some incredibly important points.

I think my hon. Friend spoke for the people as a whole, and for everyone who is concerned about the issue. Of course, I suspect that hardly anyone wants to destroy or damage the archaeology around Stonehenge. We all want to do everything that we can to preserve it; there is no question about that. We do not want one blade of grass that is of historic interest to be damaged by the proposal, and of course we must do everything that we can to preserve the site. That is why so many experts have been involved in the project for so many years.

I think my hon. Friend has missed two things. First, we have to do something. He mentioned that he has been down to Cornwall on holiday on a couple of occasions, and was once stuck in traffic thanks to President Obama. From listening to BBC Radio Wiltshire, I can tell hon. Members that the A303 at Stonehenge is chock-a-block, morning, noon and night, seven days a week. It is the most extraordinary piece of traffic congestion in the country. That does not only affect local people and tourists trying to get down to the south-west—I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) that it is an important traffic link to the south-west—but the stones themselves.

Secondly, of course it is right that a UNESCO world heritage site should be preserved in the way my hon. Friend describes—no one denies that, but I find it hard to imagine that UNESCO could allow a site such as Stonehenge, one of the finest sites in the world, to have a traffic jam through the middle of it. Quite rightly, we decided to close the branch road that goes up towards Devizes. That road was closed because it damaged the site; it went right through the middle of it. Closing that road has actually made the traffic problems worse, but the A303 is within a yard or two of the heel stone. We are talking about the most appalling traffic jam right beside the stones. We may have traffic jams here, outside the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey, but what we see at Stonehenge is significantly worse than that. I cannot imagine why, from a heritage standpoint, anybody could do anything other than welcome the fact that this road is going to be moved. It has to be moved. It is an absolute bunion—a carbuncle, in the words of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. It is an appalling sight and we have to do something about it.

My third point was missing from the speech given by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar, which was extremely well thought through. Of course we have to preserve the archaeology, but we have to do so in a way that modern people can appreciate, and in such a way that they can live their lives. At the moment, that is not happening.

Something has to happen and people have been considering the matter for generations now. The proposal we have come up with seems to me to be the least bad of the options available to us. Of course, there may be some downsides and a bit of impact from the weight of the flyover and one or two other things, which we will try to make better, but we have got to do something. In reply to an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar said that that was not a matter for him—he comes from Essex and does not know anything about road engineering. He knows about wetlands and things of that kind, but he does not understand the realities of the place itself. He does not understand the misery that local people and tourists to the west country are currently going through.

In considering my hon. Friend’s very fine and important archaeological points, it is also necessary to consider at the same time how those things can be sustainably maintained—in other words, kept in their pristine condition in a way that allows modern people to live their modern lives.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[James Gray]

Of course, I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend from Essex.

[Tim Loughton]

Or indeed, Sussex. I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am sure that everyone here would agree that the imperative is to make sure that when he inevitably gets his ministerial car, it can speed without any encumbrance across the A303 to his constituency. Will he acknowledge that the Stonehenge UNESCO world heritage site was in place almost 5,000 years before the invention of the internal combustion engine? While we absolutely need to make sure that modern life can be compatible with its preservation, will he acknowledge that the problem with the scheme is that it does not sufficiently take account of the heritage value of the site? The site is not just the stones themselves. It is a much wider area that is of significant archaeological importance, as recognised in the wider UNESCO world heritage site—one of only 31 such sites in this country.

[James Gray]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I must correct him on two small points. It shows how little he knows of the geography of the area. If someone were to travel in their ministerial limo from north Wiltshire to London, they would not go anywhere near Stonehenge—they would be some 30 miles away from it. One of the first things he ought to do is to take a glance at a map of Wiltshire and find out exactly what is affected by this proposal.

Secondly, when he says that the UNESCO world heritage site was in place 5,000 years ago, I suspect that UNESCO was not around 5,000 years ago. None the less, that is a small oversight on his part.

Of course, we are all ad idem. We are in agreement. All of us in this room are in agreement on these matters, and it is quite wrong to try to make it into an argument. We are all in agreement. There is no question about that. Of course we must do absolutely everything in our power to preserve the archaeology, the heritage, the wildlife and the biodiversity of the area. It is an incredibly important area. We in Wiltshire are more proud of Stonehenge than almost anything else, apart from perhaps Salisbury Cathedral and Malmesbury Abbey—just to throw them in. Of course we must do those things, but we must do them at the same time as allowing modern people to live their lives.

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and well thought out speech. Does he agree that we have got to come to a balanced position, where we balance preservation against progress, and protecting the past against allowing the future to take place? The one option we cannot allow is doing nothing. Something has to be done, but it has to be done in a balanced way that embraces both sides of the argument.

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good summary of my points. He is absolutely right that this must be balanced.

I hope that the Minister will take account of the important points that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar made in his speech. Of course we must take account of every single archaeological detail. We must do what we can to preserve this hugely important site, and we must improve the UNESCO world heritage site by removing the traffic from the middle of it. Of course all those things are true, but we must also find a way of allowing people in Wiltshire and throughout the west country to enjoy their way of life.

I personally believe that the conclusion we have come to with regard to the tunnel and the approaches to it is the least bad of the options available. Nothing is great and there are problems with it, but I think we have taken account of most of the issues as best we can. I very much hope that those who are responsible for these matters will have listened very carefully to the important points made by my hon. Friend, and where improvements can be made, I am certain that they will be, but I would be extremely concerned if those kinds of concerns were to cause the delay or, even worse, the failure of the scheme as a whole.

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that we need to move to the wind-up speeches by 10 past 5. I call Dr Murrison. If you would exercise a little restraint, that would be welcome.