Sacred Earth Activists shine a light on discredited Stonehenge tunnel scheme

Activists from across the UK change movement projected key messages onto Stonehenge, including “Standing for Stonehenge”, “Stop The Tunnel” and “Defend Sacred Lands”.

The aim of the move was to highlight the UK Government’s recent approval of a discredited tunnel and road building scheme that will cause “permanent, irreversible harm” to this sacred site, according to planning inspectors.

Stonehenge has been considered a sacred site for thousands of years and continues to retain an important place in folklore and cultural identity. A place of spirituality, contemplation and celebration, it holds our ancestral memories and, for many, remains an important place of ritual and worship.

Jonathan Weekes, co-founder of Sacred Earth Activism, said: “For millennia, people have travelled from far and wide, gathering in the Stonehenge landscape to celebrate life. It's time for us now to reaffirm this vital, sacred relationship with the land. We must protect our sacred sites from desecration by billion-pound vanity projects like this Expressway and choose to honour these landscapes rather than destroy them.”

But Weekes also believes that such willingness to carve through sacred sites for the sake of saving eight minutes on a car journey is “symptomatic of a government that has no sense of the sacred, nor of honouring its climate commitments”.

“Across the country, we have seen the destruction of sacred landscapes, ancient woodlands - HS2 being another case in point - and the pollution of our waters,” he said. “With the worsening climate and environmental crises, it is more important than ever that we recognise the sacred in the land and heal our damaged relationship with it.”

Further expressions of opposition to the Expressway road building scheme have come from all sections of society, from both across the UK and the globe. In giving its approval despite previous decisions having been quashed by the courts, the UK Government also ignored objections from UNESCO and the advice of planning inspectors.

Stonehenge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS), but the body has declared the scheme incompatible with its WHS status of being of “Outstanding Universal Value''. UNESCO has also warned Stonehenge’s WHS status could be revoked as a result of the UK Government’s move. Perhaps the country’s most famous landmark, it is regarded as a British cultural icon and has been a legally protected scheduled monument for more than a century.

More than just a tunnel, the proposed Stonehenge Expressway is only one of eight schemes taking place along the main A303 route linking London to South West England. This construction project will cause massive disruption for many years to come.

It has also become a symbol of the UK’s failed transport policy. The Government’s own Committee on Climate Change recommended it should consider a halt to road-building projects, and National Highways admitted the Stonehenge scheme would increase carbon emissions by 2.5 million tonnes over its lifetime. This comes at a time of rapidly accelerating climate crisis.

Extinction Rebellion’s Marion Malcher said: “The decision to go ahead with this project is political. Building more roads just encourages more traffic. It’s completely pointless and destructive both locally and globally, totally ignoring what science is telling us as we see the floods and fires of climate breakdown unfold.”

The famous stones are set in the largest pristine chalk downland landscape in Europe. These fragile Wiltshire chalk downlands are a biodiversity hotspot and home to some of the rarest habitats in the UK. This includes the river Avon, one of the largest chalk river systems in the world, which is irreplaceable. But tunnel drilling risks damaging the aquifer and impacting already stressed water supplies.

Salisbury Extinction Rebellion’s Di Cross said: “The planet is experiencing the sixth mass extinction in its long history, to even consider rolling in the bulldozers to any part of this precious landscape, the home to rare and threatened species is ecocide, a crime against nature.”

But global history and heritage are also at risk. As UNESCO points out: “The monuments of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites demonstrate outstanding creative and technological achievements in prehistoric times.”

They are also an “outstanding illustration of the evolution of monument construction and of the continual use and shaping of the landscape over more than 2000 years, from the early Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The monuments and landscape have had an unwavering influence on architects, artists, historians and archaeologists, and still retain a huge potential for future research.”

But once damaged, this potential will be lost, forever. As we face the huge challenges ahead, we stand together in solidarity with all those who care for Stonehenge. We urge support for a powerful alliance, which includes the Stonehenge Alliance, druids, environmental groups and archaeologists, as they yet again take the fight to the Courts.

This is vital because as Oren R Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Native American Onondaga and Seneca people, once said: “In the absence of the sacred, nothing is sacred. Everything is for sale.”

Save Stonehenge WHS are raising £80,000 to defend the sacred landscape of Stonehenge against this proposed expressway and tunnel. These funds will be vital to support the legal challenge all the way to the High Courts. Click here to support the legal fundraiser