Stonehenge is in danger of being removed from the Unesco World Heritage Site

After losing Liverpool, now the United Kingdom is in danger of losing its most famous World Heritage Site, namely Stonehenge:Unesco, during the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee underway in Fuzhou (China), made it known that Stonehenge could be placed on the World Heritage in Danger list, the first step to removal (exactly as happened to Liverpool). At issue are the area’s infrastructure development policies: in fact, a road, the A303, passes near Stonehenge, for which one project involves doubling lanes and building a 3.3-kilometer tunnel, costing £1.7 billion, that would run a short distance from the site.

According to UNESCO, this is a project that would not ensure the protection of the Outstanding Universal Value of the Stonehenge site because, a document says, the development plan “threatens the integrity of the site.” The problem, according to the U.N. culture agency, lies in the fact that for cost-saving reasons a tunnel that is too short and too shallow has been designed so that it will not impact Stonehenge. Therefore, Unesco “recommends that the Committee consider inscribing the site on the World Heritage in Danger list” if the design for the A303 is approved as submitted. Unesco is therefore asking the UK to modify the project so that it does not detract from Stonehenge’s value.

Unesco’s decision has sparked a chorus of criticism of the government in the United Kingdom. According to Chris Blanford, president of World Heritage UK, the government has a “low awareness of the importance of UNESCO sites,” partly because many of them, moreover, are underfunded. “They are sites of international importance, they are the best of our cultural heritage. At a time in history when we are outside the European Union and we want to be taken seriously internationally, why are we not using these extraordinarily important resources to help us do that?”

Stonehenge is in danger of being removed from the Unesco World Heritage Site

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