Campaigners seeking to protect the archaeology surrounding the three Thornborough Henges (North Yorkshire, England) have rejected Tarmac's last minute mitigation strategy for Ladybridge Farm, the latest quarry planned for the Thornborough landscape.
     "Tarmac have refused to accept English Heritage‚s assertion that the archaeology at Ladybridge is nationally important and they have chosen to ignore government and county council planning rules," claimed TimeWatch Chairman George Chaplin. "Instead, they have made a bogus offer of land that is not under threat from quarrying and for the most part has unproven archaeological value. The land offered at Ladybridge does not match the locations of the known archaeology - it is simply the boundary that would not be quarried anyway".
     TimeWatch have released images showing the true extent of the land offered and the known archaeology at Ladybridge - they clearly show the land donated misses the majority of the known archaeology. This archaeology, confirmed by English Heritage as being nationally important, will be destroyed. This is in conflict with PPG16 and the local authority planning rules.
     "The whole point is that archaeology of national importance, whether scheduled or not, should be preserved in situ," commented Mr Chaplin. "This mitigation strategy is an attempt to avoid such an undertaking as it denies that English Heritage are able to decide what is nationally important and fails to consider the possibility that any archaeology on site may be of such importance".
     In essence, Tarmac have decided that North Yorkshires Minerals Local Plan is not to their liking and they are insisting that it should be ignored. TimeWatch see Tarmac's 'bogus offer' as both an attempt to give people a false impression that Tarmac have accepted that such important archaeology should be protected and at the same time to undermine council rules that call for preservation in situ.

Source: Timewatch.org press release (23 August 2005)