Blueprint aims to protect future of Iron Age hill fort
From an article by Joanne Ginley in Yorkshire Post Today:
A conservation blueprint to safeguard the future of Huddersfield's historic Castle Hill site, regarded as one of Yorkshire's most important early Iron Age hill forts, is set to be approved.
Castle Hill, which can be seen for miles around, is a scheduled ancient monument and has been settled for at least 4,000 years. Experts regard it as one of West Yorkshire's most significant archaeological sites.
The site, at Almondbury, was recently mired in controversy after a developer part-built a hotel which did not match plans approved by Kirklees Council.
The council took the developer to court and the hotel has since been demolished.
Now a draft conservation management plan has been produced by Leeds-based consultancy Atkins Heritage, which councillors are set to back tomorrow. If approved by a Kirklees Council cabinet committee it will eventually guide the future use and development of the site and ensure that guidelines are in place to shape its conservation and any new development.
Councillors will also be asked to back measures to address decay. These include resurfacing the car park, new off-site parking, improving footpaths, repairing erosion and damaged areas and creating a picnic area.
If members back the measures, council officers will draw up detailed proposals and costings.
It is proposed that the work would take place over the next two years.
Read the full article at...
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1084&ArticleID=1325386
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Castles and palaces under siege from government cost-cutters
The care of castles, country houses and ancient monuments is under threat from Treasury cost-cutters, it emerged last night.
Heritage has been identified as an "inefficient" area of activity which is draining money that could be spent on schools and hospitals.Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, has set up a review of heritage bodies after rejecting the radical option of giving English Heritage's 400 historic properties, including palaces and Stonehenge, to the National Trust. Miss Jowell, who has yet to visit an English Heritage site, is desperate to find a radical scheme before the election to placate the Treasury and its cost-cutting adviser, Sir Peter Gershon.
Sir Peter is understood to have identified heritage bodies as an area where savings could be found to fund "frontline" services. His wide-ranging review of costs in government has already suggested cutting 90,000 civil servants.
Miss Jowell has shown little interest in heritage, preferring "participation" activities such as sport and the arts. Funding for English Heritage has risen by only 3 per cent in the past five years, while the arts have received 53 per cent and sport 100 per cent.
Amenity groups have accused her department of struggling to understand the relevance of historic buildings and the properties which the Government holds in trust, despite the popularity of heritage television shows and evidence that heritage-led regeneration schemes are the most successful.
Miss Jowell's anxiety to act decisively over heritage was such that she commissioned a two-week study from management consultants PKF to look at merging the state-funded English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund - which exists solely on lottery money.
When that study concluded in July that there were few savings to be made, Miss Jowell, who is keen for her ministerial career to continue, set up a departmental review, the terms of reference, and even the existence of which, have yet to be announced.
One source close to the process said: "We do not know what she wants but it is something big."
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Greens Object Stonehenge Road Plans
Proposed road cutting would dominate World Heritage Site, say Salisbury Greens. If the A303 proposals were approved, the new road cutting would become the most prominent monument within the Stonehenge World. Heritage Site: the 21st century monument to the car, a kind of inverted Cursus, rivalling the original Cursus in size."
That's the warning Salisbury Green Party will present to the public inquiry that begins on Tuesday (17th February).
Local spokesperson Hamish Soutar will tell the inquiry that the damage caused by the new road would far outweigh any benefits from closing the existing roads. He will call for a return to the consensus reached at the 1995 Red Lion Planning Conference. "The Conference agreed with the aim of removing the roads entirely, at least from the area known as the Stonehenge Bowl. There is no surface route for a new road that would meet either with that objective, or with the government's international obligations to protect the World Heritage Site. English Heritage and the present government are betraying the public by backing the proposed road scheme."
Local Greens say no new road should be built, leaving the current A303 where it is but implementing road safety measures such as closing the junction with the A344 (something first recommended nearly 70 years ago). But if the government is determined to press ahead with its road-building plans, they say the only solution is a long tunnel under the entire World Heritage Site, as originally proposed by the National Trust and English Heritage and backed by the 1995 Conference.
Hamish Soutar says: "We don't really want the tunnel, but we are putting it forward because it is important that the Inquiry should consider it. We will argue that any tunnel design has to include every available safety feature, whatever the cost. We will also argue that there are benefits to be had from putting the whole project on hold for twenty years or so. Technology is changing, transport policy changes, and Stonehenge itself is old enough to wait."
Finally, he adds: "The most important World Heritage Site that we need to protect is the world itself. Our uncertain future will not be helped by continuing to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on vast new roads. Our duty to conserve Stonehenge for future generations is pointless unless we ensure that they have a world fit to live in.
Green Party WebSite
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Live in and run a pub called the Rat & Ratchet in Huddersfield. Come and see me and we can talk about all sorts of stuff from Stone Circles to Heritage Action.
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