No further action to be taken over flattening of fifty yards of Offa’s Dyke:

Following the interview under caution of a local man and a nine-month inquiry, North Wales Police have announced that no further action will be taken over the flattening of a 50 yard stretch of Offa’s Dyke as “there was insufficient evidence to prove any criminal offence and the matter is no longer being investigated”.

The announcement may come as a surprise to readers of Wales on Line, 16 August 2013 :

“….. people living nearby have reported seeing men with a large digger clearing scrub and weeds along the dyke, close to the A5 between Chirk and Llangollen. Over several hours, they flattened the embankment and filled in the ditch to level it. Jim Saunders of the Offa’s Dyke Association said: “We had a report that quite a well-preserved part of the dyke had been damaged by the new landowner….. One witness said: ‘I don’t think the men who cleared the hedge and weeds realised the significance of what they were doing. ‘ A Cadw official who came to inspect it said what they had done was like driving a road through Stonehenge.’ The owner of the field, who claims to have bought the site last month, told the Daily Mail he had ‘no idea’ the area was of historic importance. The man, who gave his name only as ‘Danny’, claimed: ‘I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never heard of Offa’s Dyke. ‘We bought this from a bloke next door and want to put stables on it. Nobody said anything to us about a historic monument, it wasn’t mentioned.’ “

The fifty yard downward spiral: first Priddy, where the culprit was fined a fraction of the value of one of his string of racehorses, then Offa’s, where the perpetrator was fined nothing … next, Avebury, above? Will they be given a lottery grant?