Can anyone explain​…

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nigelswift N
nigelswift Mar 30, 2007 07:59:07

This statement by EH:

"Both the published scheme and the new visitor facilities need to be delivered in full if the UK is to fulfil its responsibilities under the World Heritage Convention, English Heritage said."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/6507963.stm

The govt. has just said OK to the visitors centre but ONLY if the road scheme (i.e. the tunnel probably) goes ahead.

How does that translate into the official guardians saying we support the tunnel? It's a different issue.

Also, how come the tunnel is "essential if the UK is to fulfil its responsibilities under the World Heritage Convention"? I thought it was one of several schemes thought up by and under the budget of the Dept of Transport to relieve traffic congestion. EH might well be justified in supporting one of the other options, like a bypass or doing nowt, on World Heritage grounds, but a tunnel, with massive cuttings dug into the World Heritage site at each end? Why that? Well, see paragraph 2.

Something ain't right.

L Littlestone
Littlestone Mar 30, 2007 08:20:13
Replying to nigelswift

Blimey Nigel, you beat me to it there. Typed the following before going to bed last night intending to post it this morning -

Picking up on baza's post on the homepage. The Wiltshire Times reports that, "...Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government stated that the scheme (plans for the Stonehenge visitor centre) can only go ahead once the Government has approved the published A303 roads scheme."

Ehm... and when will that approval be likely? I smells a rat I does.

V VenerableBottyBurp
VenerableBottyBurp Mar 30, 2007 10:06:14
Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:
Something ain't right.
As any working class kid with parents knows, the way they tell you that you can't have what you want is by one saying yes and the other saying no and taking it in turns to do so.

The end result usually is the kid sides with one and complains against the other but doesn't get what it was they were after...

VBB

N nigelswift
nigelswift Mar 31, 2007 07:25:24
Replying to nigelswift

Sorry to be a bore, but since TMA is probably the most noticed source of popular opinion on matters relating to ancient heritage and is no doubt peeked at by an awful lot of heritage professionals, rather than simply dismissing English Heritage’s support for what may soon be perpetrated at our premier ancient icon as cack, I should like to cite two plain facts alongside what they are saying. It's right that the inconsistency is out in the open for all to see - and/or for EH to be asked to explain, if they can.

1. EH say that the improvement, even if a tunnel, “needs to be delivered in full if the UK is to fulfil its responsibilities under the World Heritage Convention”

2. Yet (in the words of Save Stonehenge) “even with the tunnel, over two miles of brand new, four-lane highway would still be bulldozed through the World Heritage Site.” http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk/homepage.html

3. And (as reported by Kate Fielden for Rescue News) at the public enquiry last December EH “accepted that all of the designated World Heritage Site (WHS) is of outstanding universal value and that the WH Convention, committing the Government to conservation, preservation, rehabilitation and presentation, applies to the whole of the designated area.” http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk/rescuespring07.html

Whatever EH’s reasons for supporting the tunnel scheme it seems they simply cannot logically claim that it “needs to be delivered in full if the UK is to fulfil its responsibilities under the World Heritage Convention” since it would do precisely the reverse.

Pass it on!