14th June 2005, 11:42 PM
The Thornborough debate like all other sites has to be taken on its own merits.
First of all in the wider context, an application to quarry in the Thornborough Area is outside of the counties local minerals plan on several measures and we should therefore bear in mind that in order to grant any application to quarry the minerals authority will have to ensure that granting that application does not cause overproduction of gravel, and that the "benefits" of the development are better at Thornborough than could be obtained elsewhere.
That being the case, the council should be looking for good reasons to allow quarrying, as opposed to finding reasons not to allow it as would be the case if the site was in a preferred extraction area.
Based on PPG16, it is clear that any loss of archaeology is a cost, along with the loss of good quality farmland to be weighed against any "benefits" of turning the quarried out remains into a partial nature conservation area as has been proposed.
The initial debate, of which archaeology forms only a small part, is therefore whether quarrying should be allowed in this area at all. I believe the council should stick to its minerals plan - a total cessation of quarrying at Thornborough would stop the significant overproduction against the plan, would prevent a significant acerage of farmland from being lost and would ensure a very important archaeological landscape is not transformed out of all recognition. Whilst I take the argument about setting, it has to be agreed that quarrying is a particualrly extreme form of devwelopment - not something that should be rubbing against such an important site with so much gravel already identified elsewhere within the Minerals Local Plan.
The argument of setting is a lesser one, and should not be applied to simply the henges, but I'll come back to that.
The primary question surely is "how important is the archaeology on Ladybridge?".
All I can say is - if a Neolithic temporary settlement was found 500m from Stonehenge, in an area not earmarked for quarrying that had already revealed a significant ritual landscape was being destroyed - would we be happy if it was quarried? Also bare in mind this is rural North Yorkshire we are talking about - Thornborough is an hour from any city - harldy an area under severe development pressure.
On more thing, who says only upstanding archaeology has value?
Save the Thornborough Henge Complex - http://www.timewatch.org
First of all in the wider context, an application to quarry in the Thornborough Area is outside of the counties local minerals plan on several measures and we should therefore bear in mind that in order to grant any application to quarry the minerals authority will have to ensure that granting that application does not cause overproduction of gravel, and that the "benefits" of the development are better at Thornborough than could be obtained elsewhere.
That being the case, the council should be looking for good reasons to allow quarrying, as opposed to finding reasons not to allow it as would be the case if the site was in a preferred extraction area.
Based on PPG16, it is clear that any loss of archaeology is a cost, along with the loss of good quality farmland to be weighed against any "benefits" of turning the quarried out remains into a partial nature conservation area as has been proposed.
The initial debate, of which archaeology forms only a small part, is therefore whether quarrying should be allowed in this area at all. I believe the council should stick to its minerals plan - a total cessation of quarrying at Thornborough would stop the significant overproduction against the plan, would prevent a significant acerage of farmland from being lost and would ensure a very important archaeological landscape is not transformed out of all recognition. Whilst I take the argument about setting, it has to be agreed that quarrying is a particualrly extreme form of devwelopment - not something that should be rubbing against such an important site with so much gravel already identified elsewhere within the Minerals Local Plan.
The argument of setting is a lesser one, and should not be applied to simply the henges, but I'll come back to that.
The primary question surely is "how important is the archaeology on Ladybridge?".
All I can say is - if a Neolithic temporary settlement was found 500m from Stonehenge, in an area not earmarked for quarrying that had already revealed a significant ritual landscape was being destroyed - would we be happy if it was quarried? Also bare in mind this is rural North Yorkshire we are talking about - Thornborough is an hour from any city - harldy an area under severe development pressure.
On more thing, who says only upstanding archaeology has value?
Save the Thornborough Henge Complex - http://www.timewatch.org