TIME Team presenter Tony Robinson has criticised plans for a tunnel past Stonehenge as “old-fashioned” proposals that would only protect part of the ancient site.

Highways England is holding a public consultation on its plans for putting the A303 into a 1.8-mile (2.9km) dual carriageway tunnel where it passes the ancient stone circle to cut congestion and improve the surroundings.

But opponents are concerned the plan, with a tunnel past the stones that would emerge within the World Heritage Site and a bypass to the north or south of nearby Winterbourne Stoke, would damage the wider archaeology and environment.

Speaking outside the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House in London, where Highways England was holding an event as part of the public consultation, Robinson said: “I think the proposal we are being offered is a really old-fashioned one. It assumes what needs to be protected is that little clump of stones.”

He said the stone circle was invaluable, but over the past 20 to 30 years, experts had begun to appreciate that the area around it was a complex network of henges, pathways, barrows and track-ways.

“If you were going to protect Buckingham Palace, you wouldn’t put a tunnel in halfway down the Mall. To protect Wembley Stadium, you wouldn’t put a tunnel halfway up Wembley Way.”

The Stonehenge Alliance, which was staging a protest outside the event, want the consultation to be scrapped and re-run because they believe the options on the table would inflict severe damage on the World Heritage Site.

Kate Fielden, of the Stonehenge Alliance, said: “We want a genuine consultation with real choice.

“Both of Highways England’s options involve huge and damaging new roadworks gouged into our most important ancient landscape.”

A spokesman for Highways England said:  “We are working closely with key heritage organisations within the World Heritage Site to find the best solution possible.”