Stonehenge to share in £87m lottery boost

A revamp of Stonehenge was announced by managers of a lottery fund yesterday, along with £87m grants to 22 projects around Britain.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has approved a multimillion-pound package of improvements at the ancient stones in Wiltshire, billed as a solution to the 20-year row over the facilities at the site.

New museums in Leeds and Swansea, a new five-year project to protect the 16th century ship the Mary Rose and two redevelopment schemes aiming to encourage investment in deprived areas of Manchester have also been approved.

Full details of the plans for Stonehenge will be unveiled by English Heritage, which owns the stones, in Salisbury next week, in what may put an end to two decades of controversy over plans for the World Heritage site.

Successive governments, English Heritage and the National Trust have been unable to resolve the problem of Stonehenge. The proximity of two busy roads, combined with the lack of visitor facilities, were condemned as a "national disgrace" in 1989.

Since then, there have been proposals to close a smaller road, replace the visitor facilities with an interpretative centre out of sight of the stones, and bury a main road in a tunnel. However objectors have argued that a new road would simply increase traffic. Yesterday, Liz Forgan, chairwoman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said the proposals would enable the stones to be seen properly in their "ancient landscape" in a way that honoured their "mysterious power".

"It's not an easy site and there is much work to do before a final scheme can be agreed, but our board was persuaded that support at this moment was right if the momentum towards a proper solution is to be maintained," she said.

"What we are all after is a holistic and considered view of the site where the pleasure which vast numbers of people get from visiting the stones can be reconciled with the quality of the experience they get when they do so."

The fund has also approved a £19m grant to create a museum in the Victorian Leeds Institute Building to replace one in the city that closed three years ago. It aims to add to the regeneration of Leeds city centre though nationally important collections of art and history.