THE Government has pulled the plug on funding for the new £27.5million visitor centre at Stonehenge.

Plans for the long-awaited centre at Airman’s Corner were unveiled last year and it was vowed it would be open in time for the 2012 Olympics, but the treasury announced this morning that it will no longer be stumping up £10million towards the cost.

The project involved building a new centre and a car park at Airman’s Corner, with a land train to take visitors to the stone circle.

The existing visitor centre and parking would have been removed and the A344 from Stonehenge to the A303 closed off and grassed over, with cars diverted to Longbarrow Roundabout and along the A360 to Airman’s Corner, where a new roundabout would have been constructed.

Salisbury’s MP John Glen said: “I am extremely disappointed and angry that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury should decide to withdraw Government funding for the Visitor Centre at Stonehenge.

"Stonehenge is a World Heritage Site and is up there with the Pyramids in terms of its significance.

"It is abundantly clear to anyone who has visited Stonehenge that the present facilities - which were damned 20 years ago by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, as 'a national disgrace' – are in desperate need of updating."

Mr Glen said he will be making inquiries about alternative forms of funding.

A statement issued by English Heritage said: “English Heritage is obviously extremely disappointed that the £10 million promised by Gordon Brown, then prime minister, in the House of Commons on May 13, 2009, will not now be forthcoming.

Stonehenge is a project of global significance. “It is Britain’s premier World Heritage Site. It was a key feature in Britain’s bid for the London Olympics. Transforming the monument’s setting and the visitor experience is vital to Britain’s reputation, and to our tourism industry, especially in 2012 but also thereafter.”

* For a further report see the June 24 edition of the Salisbury Journal.