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Urgent: Stonehenge needs YOU!

Save Stonehenge! | 17.06.2003 07:27 | Culture | Free Spaces

Stonehenge needs YOU!

>
> 1. Urgent: Stonehenge needs YOU to stop massively destructive highway!
>
> It's mid-June 2003 and the Summer Solstice will soon be here. That's
> normally a time for great celebration at Stonehenge. But this year things
> will be a little different. The British government has just published the
> full details of how it plans to bulldoze a new four-lane highway through
> the world-famous heritage site. British environmental groups, under the
> banner of the Stonehenge Alliance, have roundly condemned the scheme as
> "massively destructive". Save Stonehenge! urgently needs your help, once
> again, for the next stage of our campaign. Please read on!
>
> Last time we wrote to you, back in December, the British government had
> announced it was softening its original plan to bulldoze the road straight
> through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. The original plan would have
> sunk the middle part of the road into a so-called "cut-and-cover" tunnel
(a
> very deep bulldozed trench with a roof added on top and grassed over
> afterwards). Thanks to huge public opposition from people such as you, the
> cut-and-cover plan is no more.
>
> But what we have now is not very much better.
>
> The shocking details of the new scheme were released on June 3. The
British
> government and its roadbuilding wing, the Highways Agency, is still
> promoting its plan as an "improvement" for Stonehenge, with glossy
artist's
> impressions of wide open green fields and empty local roads. The mockup of
> the new tunnel entrance, for example, shows a road with only two
> carriageways instead of four and absolutely no traffic on the new road
> whatsoever! It's all highly misleading and very far from the truth. The
> British government talks about its plan to remove "20th century clutter
> from Stonehenge"; what it doesn't mention is its determination to replace
> it with "21st century clutter" that in our view will be even more
> destructive and intrusive.
>
> The facts are these: The new highway would be 7.7 miles (12.4 km) long. A
> small part of this new road (1.3 miles or 2.1 km -- about one sixth of it)
> would be sunk into a tunnel bored (drilled) under the part of the World
> Heritage Site nearest to the stone circle. But that still leaves over six
> miles of massively destructive new road being bulldozed at ground level,
or
> in cuttings (deep trenches) through the priceless landscape around
> Stonehenge. Let's make this totally clear: THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT STILL
> INTENDS TO BULLDOZE OVER TWO MILES OF BRAND NEW, 4-LANE HIGHWAY AT GROUND
> LEVEL THROUGH THE INTERNATIONALLY IMPORTANT STONEHENGE WORLD HERITAGE
SITE.
> The new road would also involve massive destructive at Longbarrow
> Crossroads, the archaeologically sensitive area on the western edge of the
> World Heritage Site.
>
> Let's not pretend that this new highway is anything to do with protecting
> Stonehenge. It is being built because the British government wants to
> create a massive new highway from London to the West Country and
> Stonehenge, unfortunately, is in the way. Don't be fooled by the glossy
new
> photos of grass and trees. The bottom line is this: The new Stonehenge
plan
> is a Trojan horse that will bulldoze four lanes of massive new road into
> the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.
>
> Stonehenge needs YOU!
>
> The British government has released its official plan in draft form (the
> so-called "Draft Orders") for "public consultation". We urgently need
> hundreds of people to object to this plan BEFORE 4TH SEPTEMBER 2003 so
that
> the government will hold a public inquiry (a bit like a court case at
which
> the merits of the plan can be discussed in detail). What we need you to do
> is very simple. Please fill in and send off the standard letter of
> objection below to the Stonehenge Project Team, Highways Agency, Zone
> 2-05/K, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, BRISTOL BS1 6HA, UK.
> Or you can send it by fax. From the UK, fax to: 0117 372 8238; from
> overseas, fax to: (Your international dialling code) + 44 117 372 8238.
> Please DO NOT send emails; they will ignore them. By all means write your
> own letter or modify ours however you wish, but be sure to make clear that
> you object to the plan.
>
> You can download the standard objection letter in various wordprocessed
> formats (plain text TXT, rich-text format RTF, Microsoft Word DOC, or
HTML)
> from our website at  http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk/actnow.html
>
> 2. How you can help
>
> Our website has lots of other ideas on how you can help the campaign.
Small
> donations of money are a huge help and our campaign would have to stop
> without them. We have no overheads or office costs, no paid staff and
> everyone works on the campaign for free. Even our website is hosted free.
> We are extremely cost-effective: every single pound/dollar we raise goes
> directly toward the campaign to Save Stonehenge! If you'd like to make a
> secure online donation, please go to
>  http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk/donate.html
>
> Thanks as always for your support. Please get writing those objection
> letters straight away!
>
> Happy Solstice and have a great summer!
>
> Chris
> for Save Stonehenge!
> Email:  info@savestonehenge.org.uk
> Website:  http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk

Save Stonehenge!
- e-mail: info@savestonehenge.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

It's more than just a road ...

17.06.2003 10:40

... this is an attempt by the ruling oligarchy to once and for all confront and defeat the ever growing social movement that sees road building and the imposition of technology over our land and our bodies as exactly what it is ... slavery.

I don't know about you, but I really don't have anything so pressing that I need five minutes knocked off my journey time from a - b etc ( and I'm an ex-londoner living in the west country, so apparently this is for my convenience)

Do they really need this road, are the alternatives really unviable or too expensive ... or are they engaging in 'swampy baiting'?

Just what exactly is beneath stonehenge ... is it expendable to the short term interests of capitalism?

If they though Newbury was tough ....

p.s. the new site feels great, very instinctive and easy on the eyes ... I like it.
Ta.

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


effect on the grid

18.06.2003 13:35


Alongside the other objections validated here, one would presume the
construction of a 4-lane highway through this site, would also be
designed to have a massive impact on the global grid, from Wiltshire
to Aukland

dh