NATIONAL Highways has said there is "no timescale" for the Stonehenge tunnel re-determination process. 

In July 2021, the High Court ruled that the A303 Stonehenge tunnel scheme was "unlawful", after it was given tghe green light by the then Transport Secretary Grant Schapps the previous November. 

Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) challenged the Secretary of State's decision to back the £1.7 billion scheme to overhaul eight miles of the A303, including the two-mile tunnel.

The go-ahead came despite advice from Planning Inspectorate officials claiming the scheme would cause “permanent, irreversible harm” to the Unesco World Heritage Site.

UNESCO had warned that Stonehenge’s status as a world heritage site would be in danger if plans for a tunnel underneath it were not altered.

What's happening?

The current Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper continues to look again at the project’s planning application, or Development Consent Order (DCO for short) in what’s known as a “re-determination” process, following a judicial review.

“Re-determination” explained

National Highways has also offered an explanation of what 're-determination' means.

It said: "To explain this, we need to understand what has happened since the DCO was approved in November 2020 by the then Secretary of State Grant Shapps.

"Following the approval, a High Court challenge resulted in a judicial review. Basically this is a type of court proceeding where a judge reviews whether a decision made by a public body is taken lawfully or fairly.

"It concerns the way in which a decision has been made, rather than the rights and wrongs of any conclusion reached or the merits of a project or application.

"In July 2021, a High Court judge ruled that the decision to grant the DCO was “unlawful”. This didn’t mean that Stonehenge tunnel scheme was unlawful itself but it did mean that planning permission was quashed.

"In November 2021 it was announced that there was to be a “re-determination”. This meant the Secretary of State was intending to make a new decision on our existing DCO application – ie the information we had already submitted."

As part of the new decision making process, National Highways was asked to supply additional information in line with legislation that had changed in the meantime. 

This includes information on the environment, carbon and alternatives to the proposed scheme, and can be found here. 

What next?

Unlike a standard DCO planning process which has fixed timescales, a re- determination doesn’t, said National Highways.

"We don’t know when a decision will be made. It’s a case of watch this space.

"But should the scheme be approved, we will need time to get back up to speed and we are not expecting any preliminary works to start before 2024."

Contracts

Last year National Highways announced the MORE joint venture, comprising FCC Construcción, WeBuild and BeMo Tunnelling, as its preferred choice for construction along the A303.

Derek Parody, National Highways project director for the A303 Stonehenge scheme, has assured the contract will only become live once the Secretary of State has concluded the planning process.