In the current edition of British Archaeology there is a two page article by Mike Pitts entitled The Stonehenge Olympics. The first page of the article contains a review of recent plans to improve the visitor facilities at Stonehenge and the second page is a summary of English Heritage's latest Public Consultation initiative (see http://www.stonehengeconsultation.org/ for details). Mike Pitts makes an interesting point when he says -

"The government announced it was scraping the approved roads scheme on the grounds of cost last December. The day before, the DCMS said it was to give Tate Modern £50m towards its gallery extension, a gesture, it was hoped, that would ensure its opening in time for the Olympics. Now that seems unlikely, as fundraising gets tough, Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota is happy to say that his extension may not be ready till 2014."

Note the word 'happy'. Why is Serota happy? Couldn't be could it that it gives the Tate the necessary time to get the extension right?

I've never been happy with tying in new visitor facilities at Stonehenge with the Olympic deadline of 2012 - it seems an impossible objective to achieve in only four years. English Heritage are expected to have their plans in for government scrutiny by the end of this year. The proposals then have to be approved by the government, and planning permission then has to be granted for the preferred site. Each of the sites proposed for the new facilities contain, or are close to, sites of archaeological importance; are these sites to be hurriedly excavated just to meet the government's deadline for the 2012 Olympics?