Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Steve Double and Alex Burghart(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Stonehenge: Proposed Road Alterations
Debate between Steve Double and Alex Burghart(5 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Alex Burghart
I think I made it clear to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) that I am not a road engineer. I am a simple Member of Parliament with a historical and archaeological bent. The experts should find a means of answering such questions. It may be, for all I know, that they have already done so, but from the information that I have seen and that has been made available to the public, my concerns have not been allayed. Clearly, the archaeological community and international community have not had their concerns allayed either.
UNESCO and its sister group in the UK, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, have said on a number of occasions that the current proposals are not what they would wish. To quote UNESCO from earlier this year, the project is
“not adequate to protect the authenticity, integrity and Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property.”
In April of this year, ICOMOS said:
“ICOMOS-UK wishes to register a strong objection to these proposals in view of the substantial negative and irreversible impact we believe that the dual carriageways at both ends of the tunnel would have on the attributes of OUV of the WHS of Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites.”
Unless we can allay those fears, there is a danger that the status of the world heritage site will be affected. That would be extremely bad for us all, and is something that I am sure none of us wants, although I acknowledge that local MPs and local constituents will want improvements in the area.
I must put on the record the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) is here. As a Minister, he is unable to speak. I am very sorry he is in that position, because I know that he would want to raise a lot of issues on behalf of his constituents.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that it is not just local MPs in Wiltshire who want the dual carriageway to be built, but MPs from across the south-west, particularly in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, where we rely heavily on tourism? The fact that we have only one main trunk road linking us to the rest of the country is a real barrier to the growth of the tourism industry. The establishment of a second dual-carriageway link would be a huge boost to our local economy, and is vital to our economic future.