The game’s up. English Heritage and the National Trust now support major damage at Stonehenge!

We were going to write just this…..

Since the Government’s intentions about the A303 at Stonehenge aren’t yet made public we have to make do with 2 verbal clues:

• “We are discussing a range of potential options.“ So, a range of options,  not all of them. We can safely assume that the “long tunnel” option isn’t being discussed as it’s missing from the published list of options.

• “we have worked closely with key organisations, including English Heritage and the National Trust”. So, the only two heritage organisations mentioned as being “worked closely with” are one that supported the short tunnel last time and one that didn’t but is strongly rumoured to be prepared to reverse its stance if its land isn’t touched.

So who’d bet against a short tunnel? And aren’t these words pretty slippery:

• “No investment decisions have been made”. But if the long tunnel is missing from the list of options the biggest investment decision has been made. The Autumn Statement will specify  the short tunnel no doubt and the only faint hope for avoiding it thereafter will be if all those organisations who opposed it so passionately last time unite to do so again. It would be ironic if the organisation with the watchword “forever, for everyone” broke ranks and agreed to the damage.

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But now we have to write this….

It has been revealed in the Financial Times that English Heritage and the National Trust are both willing to support a short tunnel. It won’t encroach on their land, it will threaten any number of monuments and damage any number of monument settings within the World Heritage Site and it does offer the opportunity to expand an enclosed theme park.

You might very well think that any conservation bodies worthy of the name would fight like tigers (for a very long time, and in public)  for a long tunnel – since one takes donations to stand up for special places “forever, for everyone” and the other takes taxpayers’ money to be England’s official “heritage champion”, but you’d be wrong, evidently. It’s notable though that both have successfully defended their own patches. So it’s an awful day for the Stonehenge World Heritage Site and a much better one for NT and EH.

But here’s the bit that will stay on their respective records forever:

“Officials close to the minister say it is “highly significant” that the National Trust and English Heritage are both willing to support a tunnel…..“

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Here’s the National Trust Press Office’s attempt to justify the organisation’s craven abdication of its moral duty to everyone who ever sent it money http://ntpressoffice.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/national-trust-statement-on-stonehenge-tunnel-proposal/

(A remarkably similar statement can be expected from the English Heritage Press Office shortly!)