Stonehenge: the unreliable nature of certainty

The National Audit Office was already unconvinced that the Stonehenge project was value for money – and that was before the world was engulfed in the greatest economic crisis in generations! So clearly, the Transport Secretary would need an additional reason to approve the project, one that transcends mere economics.

Historic England, English Heritage and the hapless National Trust have obligingly tried to supply one to the Government: “the scheme will be a net cultural improvement to the World Heritage landscape”. As to that:

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On the left, the cultural “improvements” made in the 50s and 60s. On the right, the landscape now, with most of them gone. What one generation of experts classed as visitor improvements were seen by the next as a national disgrace and removed! “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains” …. except for some scars and an area left utterly devoid of archaeological evidence.

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Food for thought, bearing in mind that the area of cultural destruction now being promoted by EH, HE and the Trust is a thousand times greater than the area previously admitted to having been “a national disgrace”. Making “cultural improvements” is closely related to “irreversible cultural disasters”, as history has often shown. Should we really take the chance?