Stonehenge – Options For New Visitor Facilities

The CBA’s Director, Dr Mike Heyworth, wrote to Barbara Follett, Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism , on 6 January to express the CBA’s concerns about the choice of site for new visitor facilities at Stonehenge. It is expected that the final decision will be announced next week.

We continue to believe there is a great opportunity to improve the woefully inadequate provision for public enjoyment of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. The CBA is totally behind the push to find a realistic and acceptable solution for new visitor facilities in the near future. The international attention that will be focused on Britain for the Olympics should allow us to demonstrate to the world that we fully support the principles of the World Heritage Convention and the outstanding universal value attached to the Stonehenge WHS.

Dr Heyworth continues:

Our Trustees have considered the options proposed with the same care and concern that we believe English Heritage and the National Trust have invested in the long-running quest to find a site for a modern visitor facility. We understand that most of the possible options presented in last year’s consultation are now ruled out for various reasons and that effectively only two alternatives are feasible. In this context, we thought it would be helpful to restate briefly our views on them. The CBA has expressed serious reservations about the impact of development at the Fargo site, as have many other archaeological and heritage organisations. Consequently we believe that this option carries the highest level of planning risk regarding any new development for a proposed visitor centre. Development at Airman’s Corner, however, may provide a workable option despite the concerns we have expressed about its visual intrusion on the WHS, although much will depend on the detail. As a short-term, reversible development outside the WHS, we suggest further consideration of this option and other options outside the western side of the WHS as an alternative to new building and car-parking on the highly sensitive site at Fargo. We are most grateful for the opportunity to share our views with you and look forward to a positive outcome from the current discussions.

The announcement of the decision will be posted on the CBA’s News page as soon as it is available to us.

For further information on the history of the Stonehenge consultation process, see the Conservation section where you can also download the document.