The Stonehenge Alliance write: The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has commissioned a special edition of its members’ magazine British Archaeology “designed to inform debate about the proposed road tunnel at Stonehenge”. Unfortunately for the CBA, it sends some confusing messages. Although the writer states that the views expressed are his own and not about the tunnel, the narrative ends with his idiosyncratic views about the road scheme which includes a c.3km tunnel.
http://new.archaeologyuk.org/news/stonehenge-special-report
The author’s account of new fieldwork and discoveries within the World Heritage Site and beyond its boundaries is helpful as far as it goes. But there is more than one side to a debate and significant information is missing since, in his dismissive approach towards those campaigning against the A303 widening scheme, he fails to explain their reasons.
In highlighting the obvious fact that significant archaeology continues beyond the boundary of the WHS, the author neglects to acknowledge that the Government is obliged, under the terms of the World Heritage Convention, notably at Article 4, to ensure “the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations” of its designated World Heritage properties. Also omitted from his account are references to Government planning guidance and policy designed to honour those commitments in relation to our WHSs and their settings. The boundaries of WHSs may be extended via a complicated process to include new finds but the existing boundaries must include all those attributes for which the WHS was designated. Stonehenge lacks a “buffer zone”, now a UNESCO requirement for all WHSs: another cause for concern about the proposed A303 scheme.
Read more here
http://stonehengealliance.org.uk/confusing-messages-in-the-cbas-stonehenge-special/
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road