Planning Bill

I shall speak briefly on a similar point arising from Amendment No. 62, which states: "““The Secretary of State shall provide for early public participation””," on important matters concerning environmental questions. I shall refer to something that went wrong—it is not, I think, the fault of the current department involved in environmental matters, but it is an object lesson in how not to do it. Soon after I retired, when I was doing some voluntary work for the National Trust, I was invited to take part in a serious discussion about the future of Stonehenge and, in particular, of the road works surrounding it. I went to one of the first conferences held in the new conference centre just over the road. It was a very serious conference addressed by experts on all aspects involved and we produced a very thorough report that was unanimously accepted by the Government of the day—although clearly public finance for some of the work that we proposed was difficult. The key to that was the future of the A303—a principal highway of the south-west that runs along the site and, in effect, poisons the whole of it. The suggestion made in our report was that serious consideration should be given to undergrounding the A303 so that it would not run on the surface at all. That was accepted in principle by the Government, although whether and when it would be built was not decided. Three months ago, I received a postcard from the department concerned—I suppose that it was Defra—informing me: ““No. Can’t do that. No money available””. If a public consultation of that kind takes place engaging a major department of state and the report is in principle accepted, it should not be thrown on the rubbish heap. Those of us who took part in those voluntary activities will not take part if such things go on.