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Silbury's structural integrity

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jimit J
jimit Dec 20, 2007 13:23:29
Replying to nigelswift

Words fail me! And what are the bags made from? Please tell me they're not plastic and even if they are not they are still alien to the interior of the hill which contradicts the remit.

Poor, poor Silbury, it deserves better.
Jim.

O ocifant
ocifant Dec 20, 2007 14:14:42
Replying to jimit

My flabber has never been so ghasted!

So conditions have been found to be so unsafe, that a proper repair and withdrawal as promised has proved to be impossible to deliver?

Maybe, just maybe (BBC skimping and failures aside, which obviously played their part), the best part of 7 years EH spent sat sitting on hands wondering what to do while the voids got bigger and bigger as they migrated may have been a factor in the current dangerous state of the tunnels?

And now they're using grout - a solution which was poo-pooed at the public meeting in Devizes as impractical. Ha! Those bags look to be the plasticised cotton/nylon ones used in the construction industry. Hardly biodegradable, I suspect!

I weep for the Hill.

L Littlestone
Littlestone Dec 20, 2007 14:20:01
Replying to jimit

And what are the bags made from? Please tell me they're not plastic and even if they are not they are still alien to the interior of the hill which contradicts the remit.
Indeed. Hard to tell from the photos what they're made of, but surely chalk blocks wouldn't have been that difficult to make.

What I find really infuriating is that English Heritage assume people are not concerned and don't want to know about these things. In Update 26 EH say, "This mechanical filling process is a very time consuming and labour intensive process, using many thousands of bags filled with chalk..." Yes, yes we know all that, but how much more difficult is it for EH to say "...using many thousands of conservation-grade bags made of ----- filled with chalk."

So come on English Heritage, stop treating us like schoolchildren - update your latest Update with the relevant information rather than padding it out with your usual PR waffle.