Stonehenge: hired words versus facts.

In 2018 there was a clear sign of how the three Establishment conservation bodies intended to approach the Stonehenge short tunnel:

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“Historic England, the National Trust and English Heritage welcome the work done by Highways England on the design of the proposed A303 road at Stonehenge” and the options put forward “go a long way towards protecting and enhancing the World Heritage Site”.

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Doubtless millions have been reassured by that. Why not, when those three conservation bodies say all will be well with a short tunnel. But the Government wants a short tunnel, Highways England is its creature and those three conservation bodies are in receipt of the Government’s funding or patronage. So here, by contrast is the five minute contribution by Paul Gossage, speaking as “an ordinary member of the public” with nothing to gain except the Stonehenge Landscape’s protection forever, for everyone.

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“I’m speaking as an ordinary member of the public, but with a great deal of respect for what archaeologists and scientists have revealed about the area around Stonehenge.

There are two sides in this debate about the tunnel road project…..those for….and those against…….…But who should we believe?

Well, lets just look at the claims of two organisations, who normally behave ethically, but who support the tunnel. English Heritage and Historic England. They’re the national bodies who are giving the tunnel project, historical legitimacy. And it’s no coincidence…that they both stand to gain enormously from it.

It’s best if I refer to them both jointly as English Heritage, as on the tunnel issue they are working in unison, and English Heritage are the organisation I’ve had quite a lot of correspondence with, my last being just 3 weeks ago.

Well……lets look at English Heritage’s claims….. to see if they are credible…… and truthful.

If you do a Google search using the key words “English Heritage and Blick Mead”, you’d expect to get a lot of results from such a leading historical organisation, letting the public know about Blick Mead. I mean, it’s just over a mile from Stonehenge and obviously related to it in some way. However, the only result you get, from the whole of the Web, is just three sentences.

Could it perhaps be, that English Heritage don’t want people to know about Blick Mead……as then they might realise how important it is….and perhaps think it shouldn’t be damaged.

Anyway, as regards the actual credibility of those three sentences. The first one says, quote, “There is no evidence that the proposed tunnel will damage the Mesolithic site of Blick Mead”….Come on English Heritage…this is completely untrue……and the Blick Mead team have already given an abundance of scientific evidence to refute it. And even without that, it’s obvious that Blick Mead’s going to be damaged. The dig site’s only about 20 metres from the current road and the new road is not like a long roll of stair-carpet that you can just lift up and then lay down a new one. Especially as the building of the new road will require a wide corridor of construction access either side. So, I think it’s completely dishonest of EH to say, quote “There is no evidence that the proposed tunnel will damage the Mesolithic site of Blick Mead”………

Coming to sentence two, quote “The proposed tunnel and any infrastructure needed to improve the Countess roundabout are well away from the site (Blick Mead is 700m away from the roundabout)”. Well, EH have used this figure of 700 metres to imply that Blick Mead is a long way away from any danger. As I said earlier, Blick Mead is just 20 metres from danger, so this 700 meters figure they have used gives a completely false and misleading impression. Presumably, 700 meters is what they think is the distance from Blick Mead to the roundabout. In fact, that distance is 500 meters. So their 700 meters figure is wrong…..its actually an exaggeration of 40%.

And the rest of sentence two is incorrect as it says, quote, “any infrastructure needed to improve the Countess roundabout are well away from the site”. This is just not true, because emerging from the roundabout….500 meters away and NOT 700………will be a massive four lane flyover…23 feet tall….on a huge embankment…… as well as….. two slip roads feeding traffic in and out of this large flyover, and one of these slip roads will merge into the two westbound traffic lanes, right by the Blick Mead dig site. So it’s completely dishonest of EH to say….quote… “any infrastructure needed to improve the Countess roundabout are well away from the site”.

Coming lastly to sentence three, EH say, quote,“Highways England is aware of the water table issues and will be assessing any potential impact on the site”. This really is just trying the buck onto Highways England. It’s obvious that the site will dry out if the road is built….and it’s scientifically proven that this will result in the loss of carbon dating evidence. Of course EH know all this……but they just don’t want to admit the truth, as that would then weaken their case for the tunnel.

In summary, I think those three English Heritage sentences are a mixture untrue statements, deliberately misleading information and deceit. The fact is, this tunnel project wouldn’t be going ahead at all, if it didn’t have their approval……But they simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth on this issue. Anyway, please judge for yourselves who’s telling the truth…… I know what I think……but please judge for yourselves………

Thank you.”

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