UK campaigners ask court to stop tunnel past Stonehenge site

Campaigners gather outside the UK's High Court as a legal challenge gets underway attempting to block a government-backed plan to build a road tunnel through the landscape surrounding Stonehenge.

The proposed four lane dual-carriageway would replace the existing two lane road which frequently becomes blocked with traffic travelling between London and southwest England where it passes the ancient standing stones.

The campaigners are seeking a judicial review, having won a previous legal battle to stop the project.

Author and popular historian Tom Holland, attending the protest, says the proposed tunnel would "desecrate... the most significant prehistoric landscape in Britain, maybe in the whole of Europe." Rollo Maughfling, who calls himself the "Arch-Druid of Stonehenge", says it would be "a terrible disturbance... worse than it's ever been in all of these 5,000 years."