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On 9 December 2007, The Heritage Journal published this statement:
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“We are delighted to join with many other concerned bodies such as the National Trust and the Stonehenge Alliance in welcoming the government’s announcement that they have cancelled the Stonehenge Project and any intention to construct new roads over the World Heritage Site”.
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No, that wasn’t a misprint! In 2009 The National Trust really did welcome the fact that plans to construct new roads over the World Heritage Site had been cancelled. But that was then. Now, The Trust is supporting and encouraging the construction of a mile of new dual carriageway over the World Heritage Site (and it deliberately manipulated its 2017 AGM vote to that end).
Amazing, isn’t it, such a change, the result, presumably, of an off-the-record call from very high. What other explanation can there be since it’s a change only to the wording, not to the facts? All that has happened is that massive damage has been re-described as massive improvement and the proud watchword “forever, for everyone” has been twisted into “Whatever the Government wants”. Serious questions will soon need to be asked about the behaviour of The National Trust.
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Was this the moment when “massive damage” became “massive improvement”?
The Heritage Journal 
5 comments
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10/12/2019 at 09:09
paulintheswimhotmailcom
Yes the National Trust’s reputation is being badly damaged by their selfish support for the tunnel. They will go down in the history of Stonehenge, our most iconic national monument, as having completely disgraced themselves.
10/12/2019 at 09:51
Janice Hassett
This as you well know is scaremongering and twisting the truth…..in you’re words – “new dual carriageway OVER the World Heritage Site”??? Please visit http://www.highwaysengland.co.uk/a303-stonehenge-home/ to find the truth and read their “did you know” section: THE TUNNEL and try as I might, I cannot work out how a “tunnel” will go OVERGROUND will be 40 meters UNDER GROUND and further away from the monument than the existing A303!
11/12/2019 at 05:51
heritageaction
Er…. we have no problem with the tunnel except that it is too short. As a result, there will be a mile of new dual carriageway forming the approaches to the tunnel OVER the World Heritage Site landscape. It’s not very complicated, and UNESCO opposes it, so how you have gathered such a massive misunderstanding is a tribute to Highways England et al !
(It was initially a surprise to find ANYONE misunderstanding such a simple issue so comprehensively, but then we realised you are the Founder of the Stonehenge Traffic Action Group and all became clear! In the light of such a deliberate misrepresentation of the issue, it is all the more extraordinary that you should have accused US of “twisting the truth!”!)
11/12/2019 at 12:14
paulintheswimhotmailcom
Yes I would have thought that the people at Stonehenge Traffic Action Group would have understood such an uncomplicated issue and not accuse others of “twisting the truth”.
The truth is that the current tunnel and road plan will seriously damage Blick Mead (to the east of Stonehenge) which is such an important site for our understanding as to how hunter-gatherers spread out and built the wider Stonehenge landscape. Similar damage will occur in the west to what world class archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson said a few weeks ago is the densest concentration of Neolithic burial mounds in Britain and which all date to the millennium prior to Stonehenge. He also said that the current plan would cut through the remains of a settlement from the time of the later stages of Stonehenge’s construction, potentially where the builders of its Bronze-Age phase lived and this will all result in the loss of half a million artifacts along with an unquantifiable loss of knowledge about Stonehenge and its builders.
I add that UNESCO and many other prestigious organisations are against the current tunnel and road plan. If it goes ahead then we will have lost those two irreplaceable opportunities to find out so much about one of our nation’s most iconic historic sites. And that would be an absolute tragedy for humanity.
11/12/2019 at 18:28
heritageaction
The Stonehenge Traffic Action Group have a rare distinction: they’re the only group of Nimbies anywhere that Highways England agrees with! As such they are being used by HE to promote the damage to the World Heritage Landscape!