Thornborough "debate"

[Curator Kid]

Scheduling isn't so much expensive (unless buying out an existing planning permission is involved - EH don't go there, and given their miniscule budget, I can't say I blame them...), as extremely rigourous. As a legal designation and somewhat draconian protection regime, one of the first things you need to establish are "edges" to an area within which the legal protection can be enforced. This is why it is incredibly difficult to protect landscapes, and it's only really specific sites and features that can be protected by scheduling. There's no room for fuzzy or generic areas of protection in the law, and to be honest, the whole framework would almost certainly collapse under legal challenges if there was. The surrounding landscape at Thornborough is mainly post-medieval above ground, so short of stripping the entire area to see where the concentrations of significant features are, how could you define the area to designate?

To be frank, it's easy to shout "archaeology of national importance" from the safety of the public gallery, but when you have to justify this in front of non-qualified and often hostile opponents and planning inspectors at an enquiry, you'd be surprised how easily such a defence can be dismantled - even on the most obviously significant of sites. I'm not a massive fan of EH as some of you may have guessed from my previous postings, but in this case, I think they deserve a certain amount of support and sympathy for the difficult position they are being placed in.