An excerpt from the ruling
On Friday Mr Justice Holgate ruled that Grant Shapps, the Conservative transport secretary, acted irrationally and unlawfully when he approved the project.
The court found that Shapps did not properly consider alternative schemes, as the law requires him to do, and that the decision-making process included no evidence of the impact on each individual asset at the world-famous historic site.
and more
On Friday, Holgate said there was a “material error of law” in the decision-making process because there was no evidence of the impact on each individual asset at the historic site. And he said Shapps’s failure to consider alternative schemes breached the world heritage convention and common law.
“In this case the relative merits of the alternative tunnel options compared to the western cutting and portals were an obviously material consideration which the (transport secretary) was required to assess.
“It was irrational not to do so. This was not merely a relevant consideration which the (transport secretary) could choose whether or not to take into account.
“I reach this conclusion for a number of reasons, the cumulative effect of which I judge to be overwhelming.”
A panel of expert inspectors recommended that development consent be withheld because the project would substantially and permanently harm the integrity and authenticity of the site, which includes the stone circle and the wider archaeology-rich landscape.
In a report to Shapps, the officials said permanent, irreversible harm, critical to the outstanding universal value of the site, or why it is internationally important, would occur, “affecting not only our own, but future generations”.
