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Unesco has condemned the UK authorities’s current determination to greenlight a controversial plan to construct a two-mile tunnel near the traditional website of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, UK. Earlier this 12 months, Mark Harper, the transport secretary, accepted the challenge, which was initially costed at £1.7bn.
The overhaul of the realm is being overseen by the federal government company generally known as Nationwide Highways. The work includes rerouting the A303 street, which runs alongside the prehistoric Wiltshire website into a brand new dual-carriageway tunnel passing near the heritage website. The A303, in the meantime, can be changed into a public walkway.
In a report issued by the Unesco World Heritage Committee final week, which was endorsed by 21 member states, the UN cultural physique stated that “the proposed A303 street enchancment scheme, for which a DCO [development consent order] was first issued in 2020, opposite to the request of the [World Heritage] committee and the State Social gathering’s [the UK government’s] personal Analyzing Authority [an Examination Body of five inspectors rejected the plan] and which was later quashed by the UK Excessive Court docket in 2021, stays a menace to the OUV [outstanding universal value] of the property.”
Unesco says it’s reiterating its earlier request that “the State Social gathering not proceed with the implementation of the scheme for the part between Amesbury and Berwick Down in its present kind, and considers that the minimal change required should embody an extension of the underground part of the western method ([relating to the] tunnel) to at the least the western boundary of the property”. Unesco requests that the UK authorities makes needed modifications to the redevelopment plan, according to its earlier suggestions, by 1 February 2024.
Unesco has beforehand formally opposed the plan, saying in 2019 that the tunnel initiative may have an “antagonistic affect”. In 2021, it warned that Stonehenge may very well be placed on its checklist of World Heritage websites in peril if the tunnel challenge was not modified.
David Bullock, Nationwide Highways’ challenge supervisor for the A303 Stonehenge scheme, informed the BBC: “We stay assured this scheme is the most effective resolution for tackling a long-standing site visitors bottleneck, enhancing journeys, bringing much-needed aid to native communities, boosting the economic system within the south-west, whereas returning the Stonehenge panorama to one thing like its authentic setting.”
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