Hi, VBB,

Thanks for your eloquent response. Whilst not wishing to prolong this any further, I feel I must take issue with your last paragraph, viz:

"Leaving it as it is without touching it will not lose any archaeology at all, and will not cause any additonal damage – and although some limited rearrangement of strata is expected by slow and minimal migration , it will be less than has occurred since 1969 and it is <b>predicted that the present voids will not migrate to the point it would cause surface damage.</b>"

We can't be sure of this can we? We cannot be certain that serious roof collapse of one of the voids, bought about by odd climatic conditions (or just the sheer weight of stupid, selfish short-sighted sightseers) will not migrate to the surface? In my benificence, I can only hope that EH's wish to re-bore the tunnel is as a result of producing a new datum, free of the uncertainty of Atkinson's tunnel (and the 19th Century one). Agreed, it will cost the earth, but it is probable that H&S concerns would rule out using the existing tunnels to backfill, thereby forcing EH to come up with this?*

Sadly, I cannot see - in these mitagative times - that EH would leave the poor bloody Hill to time, only for someone - even if they are a decayed branch of the evolutionary tree - to be injured by a suddenly surfacing void, and then presumably have to suffer the undoubted financial repercussions of turning a blind eye.

*Of course, we know that EH's position of re-boring the Hill, cloaked in the high-faluting words of the Nation's Caretaker is just a glossy conconction - the real truth is that the reboring will allow archaeo's their time to access the Hill, presumably all the while it is off-limits to the GP, and thereby sustaining its invaders in their academic isolation as a consequence of published papers, books, etc. Meanwhile, the Hill struggles gamely on......

Peace

Pilgrim

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