English Heritage’s plans are the culmination of months of working closely with a range of stakeholders and engaging with local residents.
Forget the new Visitor Centre (who knows if it will be like that or built there or built at all this side of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro) but look at the rest! It certainly looks excellent.
We do have a few concerns – the land train for one. It looks a lot better and less intrusive than we feared it might – or still could but it would be nice to know it will look like that and there’s no question of it doing other than going from A to B and back and that having it buzzing all over the WHS won’t be considered.
We also wonder if this seductive vision of no fences, no ropes and apparently full access to the stones, that we’d all like, can actually prove viable? What about erosion? And security? How are they going to be dealt with?
But most of all we wonder about the fact the government has said all the good stuff like closing part of the road can’t happen unless the new Visitor Centre gets built! The latter doesn’t seem exactly a definite which means the good stuff might not happen either.
We’re certainly not alone in seeing the road closure as terribly important in it’s own right. Rescue and the Stonehenge Alliance for two! Surely, after all these years, a way can be found to treat the closure and grassing over of the road adjacent to the stones as THE UK heritage priority?
And just DOING it?
Here are our previous “Achievable Stonehenge” images which are just like the English Heritage video ones!
External links:
http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/
http://www.stonehenge-stone-circle.co.uk/
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/
Stonehenge Tour Guide
