CAMPAIGNERS who fought against a planned but now scrapped tunnel near Stonehenge have expressed their ‘disappointment’ after the Court of Appeal ruled they would have lost a legal bid over the proposals.

Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) had appealed against a decision to refuse a challenge of approved plans to build a two-mile tunnel near the Salisbury landmark.

This scheme would have overhauled eight miles of the A303 from Amesbury to Berwick Down.

At a hearing in July, SSWHS argued the approval for the development by Huw Merriman, then-minister of state for rail and HS2, which came a year earlier, breached a duty to act fairly.

But days later, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the government “would not move forwards” with the project as she set out cuts to public spending.

The Department for Transport (DfT) defended the appeal, and in a ruling on Wednesday, Sir Keith Lindblom, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, rejected SSWHS’s bid.

The proposed Stonehenge tunnel, which was scrapped by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in July The proposed Stonehenge tunnel, which was scrapped by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in July (Image: Newsquest) In a 60-page ruling, the judges said their decision was “not to gauge the environmental or societal merits of the development proposed” but was “concerned only with the lawfulness of the decision actually made”.

They said they believed the DfT was “lawfully entitled” to approve the proposal, adding that the scheme was “directed at two significant problems”.

They were the “high levels of traffic congestion on that stretch of the A303” and the “presence in the World Heritage Site of a major road on which movement of vehicles is both visible and audible from the henge”.

On Wednesday, John Adams, chair of the Stonehenge Alliance and a director of SSWHS, issued a statement in response to the ruling.

He said: “While we are disappointed with the judgment, we are encouraged that public funding for the scheme has been cancelled.

“We welcome the new Labour government’s realisation that it was unaffordable as well as highly damaging.

“The fact that the court will only look at mistakes in process and not the veracity of evidence or arguments makes the job of challenging damaging developments extremely difficult.

“This judgment appears to give already powerful ministers even greater leeway to be ignorant of the facts. 

“We shall be considering our options, including any application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, as this case could have wider implications.”

SSWHS says the Stonehenge World Heritage site would “be a construction site today” had its decade-long campaign not taken place.