Stonehenge hoping for lottery funding
Last Updated: Thursday 24th September 2020, 16:01
Proposals have been put forward for a brand new £25 million visitors centre at Stonehenge and have now been unveiled by English Heritage. Plans for the centre, to the west of the stones have been submitted to Wiltshire council and the English Heritage is hoping for lottery funding to complete the project which has some controversial plans.
One of the more controversial ideas put forward for the visitors centre at Stonehenge are to close the A334 – the road which runs just yards from the landmark. The new visitors centre would not be visible from the stones to make the plans sensitive to its surroundings and to the significance of the monument itself according to a spokesman for the English heritage.
The plan got the go-ahead in principle back in May and now the plans have been submitted, although these plans do depend on funding being granted. It is though that much of this money may come from UK Lotto cash for good causes from the Lottery Heritage Fund.
It is hoped that the visitors centre will house exhibitions, a cafe and no doubt a gift shop, the whole lot being accessible by a transport system from the stones. The new centre should be designed to blend into the world heritage landscape, featuring a timber roof in a single story design.
The plans to close the road will no doubt be controversial, however traffic on the road has been blamed for much of the degeneration of the stones and the monument and so this idea has been up for discussion for a while now.