UNESCO Warns Stonehenge Will Be World Heritage Site In Danger With New Tunnel
Image via Shutterstock
UNESCO has declared that it will move Stonehenge to its list of world heritage sites in danger should the UK government pursue plans to build a tunnel beneath the prehistoric treasure.
In November last year, British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps greenlit a £1.7 billion (US$2.4 billion) construction project to renovate a single-lane A303 road near the heritage site into a two-lane, 3.3-kilometer (2.05-mile) tunnel extending under Stonehenge. The government cited unblocking road congestion and preventing accidents as reasons to build the tunnel.
Conservation advocates have been crushed by the decision. Greenpeace called it a “disaster for England’s heritage” that could contribute to the UK’s traffic and pollution problem, while the Stonehenge Alliance said it would be a “breach” of “the UK’s international treaty obligation… not to damage the World Heritage Site and the UK’s legal commitment to address climate change.”
Further, history experts are afraid that the construction would destroy underground archaeological artifacts that have yet to be discovered.
UNESCO awarded Stonehenge its World Heritage status in 1986 for serving as “a masterpiece of human creative genius,” “[exhibiting] an important interchange of human values,” and “[bearing] a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared.”
However, it warns that the monument’s Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) would be jeopardized as “the approved A303 improvement scheme is a potential threat to the property.”
During a session by the World Heritage Committee on Monday, officials said “the proposed tunnel length remains inadequate to protect the OUV of the property.”
The committee added, “It is regretted that for such an iconic World Heritage property, the argument persists that the perceived benefits of a longer tunnel do not outweigh the costs.”
UNESCO has urged the UK government to send an updated review of Stonehenge’s state of conservation for consideration that the monument should not be “on the List of World Heritage in Danger” by February 2022.
However, Stonehenge’s World Heritage title is in a more volatile state, as UNESCO is due to refresh the World Heritage list at a conference in China next month.
[via The Art Newspaper and Hyperallergic, cover image via Shutterstock]
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