The Stonehenge Alliance has just tweeted, not unreasonably:
We expected the National Trust to agree with the Examiners that recommended Refusal because of cultural damage.

And the answer from the Trust:
We’ve a long-standing ambition to resolve the ongoing damage caused by the current A303 as it passes through the Stonehenge Landscape.

So they want to resolve the ongoing damage by supporting vastly more damage! Is there anyone who doesn’t find that unconvincing and shifty? It matters, because the Government has said the Trust’s support for the scheme has been “pivotal” in it going ahead.

It has been pivotal, for the Trust used to say the exact opposite! In 1994, speaking for the Trust (AND English Heritage) Sir Angus Stirling, Director General of the National Trust said: “We have concluded that the only feasible on-line route for the A303 which meets the essential requirements of this World Heritage Site is a long bored tunnel …there is no historic site in England where we shall uphold that duty with greater resolve and determination.”

Why the change? What on earth is worth such reputational damage? One day, perhaps, it will be clear, but just now it certainly isn’t!