ARCHAEOLOGISTS have branded the government's £200m plans for a 2.1km tunnel under Stonehenge "inadequate", claiming it would bring "irreversible damage to the World Heritage site".

At the inquiry this week, representatives of many of Britain's most respected archaeological organisations echoed the National Trust's demands for a longer tunnel to remove traffic from a larger section of the world-famous beauty spot than the iconic stone circle.

"The proposed road severs the spatial plane, depriving visitors of the ability to experience its connectedness," said Susan Denyer, of the International Council on Monuments and Sites UK.

"Stonehenge was inscribed on the World Heritage list as an entity that has integrity.

"Some parts of the site cannot have greater value than others."

Speaking for the Council for British Archaeology, the Prehistoric Society and the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Brian Davison claimed the joint funding arrangement between the department of media, culture and sport and the Highways Agency for the 2.1km tunnel was a quick-fix solution.

"Our objections to the published scheme concern its long-term adverse effects on the Stonehenge World Heritage Site," he said.

"We are also concerned that the much-vaunted cross-departmental funding for the scheme could create an unwarranted and, in our view, dangerous precedent for the future, not just for heritage interests but for almost any other environmental issue.

"We view with horror the prospect, in the event of the scheme being implemented, that the biggest single visible monument in this 5,000-year-old landscape of world value will be an early 21st Century roadway, primarily designed to relieve traffic congestion, the benefits of which cannot be projected beyond 30 years."

Stonehenge expert Michael Parker-Pearson added: "The length of the proposed tunnel is not satisfactory because of its impact on particular elements of the World Heritage site, notably the group of burial mounds on King Barrow Ridge.

"The design for the road scheme also seriously compromises the setting of the burial mounds at Longbarrow Crossroads.

"Furthermore, the proposals represent a missed opportunity to reunite the now sundered Stonehenge Avenue.

"We consider that the construction of a long bored tunnel, either on the present line or on the green route, is the only acceptable solution.

"Only such a tunnel will preserve and present the World Heritage site as an intact and integrated landscape.

"Rather than execute the proposed scheme for a short tunnel, it would indeed be better to do nothing until it is possible to do better.

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