For nearly three years protest groups, archaeology societies and associations have been telling Tarmac Northern Ltd that its Ladybridge Quarry proposal was in the wrong place, was not required and would cause massive damage to one of Britain's premier archaeological sites. Now that English Heritage have moved in, it seems Tarmac may soon be finally smelling the coffee.
After years of denial, can Tarmac finally "smell the coffee"?
For nearly three years protest groups, archaeology societies and associations have been telling Tarmac Northern Ltd that its Ladybridge Quarry proposal was in the wrong place, was not required and would cause massive damage to one of Britain's premier archaeological sites.
The Thornborough Henges is a massive ancient monument complex in North Yorkshire, it's huge triple 240m earth circles (henges) are amongst Britain’s largest and finest. But these are only three out of many monuments in the Thornborough complex and they are not even the largest; an accolade reserved for the mighty mile long Thornborough Cursus (ceremonial causeway).
One of our least known but most important ancient monuments, Thornborough is the only "triple" henge complex in Britain, and may have played host to the largest religious gathering seen in prehistoric times. Ladybridge Farm is home to a camp built by these Stone Age "pilgrims" and according to many archaeologists, is one of the most important of its type in Britain.
Ladybridge Farm is the subject of an application for one of Yorkshire’s largest gravel quarries and up until recently, the word on the street was that this was a "done deal" despite the proposal being outside of the local councils Preferred Area’s for quarrying and at a time when North Yorkshire is overproducing gravel by almost the same amount as it’s planned output. Both of these points are serious breaches in council policy.
However, Tarmac’s bullish PR gave way to a humble acceptance of fact this week when in a dramatic turn of events the company were forced to request a delay in the planning application; North Yorkshires planning officers had recommended that the application be denied. The reason; proposal was in the wrong place, was not required and would cause massive damage to one of Britain's premier archaeological sites.
It was English Heritage's view that proved decisive, its response to the application stated "The archaeological deposits within Nosterfield Quarry are clearly of national importance and will be destroyed by the proposed extraction."
For some time Tarmac have tried extremely hard to ignore the fact they are quarrying in one of Britain's largest and most important monument complexes. Regarding the archaeology on Ladybridge it said "the evidence is thin and scattered", of the impact of the proposal on the monument complex they have said "it will have no impact on the Thornborough Henges". In fact the latter comment has become a mantra - Tarmac believe if they say it often enough everyone will believe them.
So how is it that Tarmac cannot see the importance of the 5,000 year old archaeology at Ladybridge Farm? Mike Heyworth, Director of the Council for British Archaeology speaking at the planning meeting said the area was "Internationally important", English Heritage recently said the Thornborough complex was the "most important ancient site between Stonehenge and the Orkneys" and have confirmed Ladybridge formed part of it.
Tarmac's archaeologists have worked tirelessly for more than ten years - Tarmac paying almost £40,000 per year in order to record "the largest concentration of Neolithic finds of this sort so far in the North of England", as well as the worlds only Mesolithic double pit alignment - a twin row of more than twenty pits in parallel, possibly the first real evidence for Mesolithic ritual activity in Britain. In all, Tarmac has excavated more than 450 archaeological features, many of which, campaigners claim, were nationally important and should have been preserved in situ in accordance with government guidelines. Nonetheless, one would think, it should have come as no surprise that the field next door (Ladybridge), would contain exactly the same sort of remains and that it might get in the way of their application somewhat.
So far it has taken more than a year for the application to get to this decisive stage, it was submitted by Tarmac to North Yorkshire County Council in June 2004. Ordinarily, a company would be crying foul by this excessive delay but in this case, just about all of the waiting is down to Tarmac.
The initial application failed to include the Archaeological Impact Report, in fact, Tarmac did not complete its investigations until long after the application was submitted. Maybe the company thought it could get the application granted on the assumption that no important archaeological impacts would be found. Strangely, the Statement of Works for the archaeological evaluation was agreed in September 2003 yet the final report was not submitted until May 2005.
When Tarmac finally submitted the archaeological assessment, it was clear that the work done proved the importance of the site, but failed to show the true extent of the archaeology. English Heritage recommend that Neolithic landscapes such as at Thornborough need to have around 10% of the subsoil area sampled in order to fully understand the nature of the archaeological remains of the site.
Tarmac had only performed a 2% evaluation of Ladybridge, and the report that was submitted failed to include some areas earmarked for sampling.
Nonetheless, the report did include news of seven Neolithic features - many more than campaigners were expecting to be produced with such a small sample. This information was sufficient to allow English Heritage to confirm that the site was of national importance - So far, something in the region of five similar sites have been found in the whole of Britain. Ladybridge has been confirmed as one of Thornborough’s "Ritual" settlements – the only question remaining is how much of the site does this nationally archaeology occupy?
Tarmac also failed to include the mitigation strategy for the archaeology when they submitted the archaeological assessment and for a while it looked like they expected the planning committee to determine the application without any specific plans as to how to deal with such rare and important remains. The presumption in the national guidelines is for preservation in situ.
In July 2005 the mitigation plan for Ladybridge was at last submitted, the planning meeting just weeks away. But before the plan could be seen by many of the consultees Tarmac ushered in the "fog of war" by announcing they intended to make a "gift to the nation" of several areas of land they recognised they had no hope of quarrying.
The confusion was for the consultees - just a few days after the announcement they received the mitigation strategy that offered to give the land only if they were allowed to quarry Ladybridge without needing to respect the need for preservation in situ for any archaeology within Ladybridge.
North Yorkshire’s Minerals Plan states "Proposals for mining operations ... which would have an unacceptable effect on nationally important archaeological remains....and their settings, will not be permitted."
Given that English Heritage had confirmed the importance of these remains, it should have come as no surprise to Tarmac when the week before the planning meeting NYCC Planning Officers recommended that the Planning Committee should refuse Ladybridge application. But apparently, this came as something as a shock to Tarmac, for at the last minute, just days before the application was due to be determined by the council they requested a delay.
The reason for the delay is according to Tarmac "give time to discuss the archaeological aspects with English Heritage in more detail and hopefully reach an informed decision based on additional factual evidence if required" apparently Tarmac are still far from keen to go back and finish the job.
In reality, a major part of English Heritages objection was "English Heritage believes that the archaeological evaluation has failed to adequately characterise the deposits within the Ladybridge Farm site". Since Tarmac had failed to work out just how extensive the archaeology was, EH had no alternative but to rule the entire site as being of national importance.
Tarmac have been forced to go back and perform more extensive archaeological work - probably involving some 400% additional soil stripping; the plan is to be agreed with English Heritage.
Campaigners are perhaps not wrong to be concerned about this latest turn of events; for a start, Tarmac have agreed to have a new archaeological assessment completed by December 2005. As seen above, the previous 2% sample took 13 months to complete AFTER the strategy was agreed; Tarmac expect to have a new strategy agreed, archaeology done, specialist reports received, report written, mitigation strategy written in a handful of weeks and with winter approaching!
Perhaps more seriously, Tarmac still appear to be denying all interpretations of Thornborough as a great monument complex whose entirety tells a story of perhaps one of the greatest creations seen in Britain.
This does not bode well for negotiations with English Heritage and maybe campaigners calls for external archaeologists to be called in are not without merit. The archaeology on Ladybridge is of national importance and any further investigations carried out on Ladybridge need to be carried out with that in mind. If Tarmac cannot agree even on this basic interpretation then the process is doomed to fail.
http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/824735.shtml
After years of denial, can Tarmac finally "smell the coffee"?
For nearly three years protest groups, archaeology societies and associations have been telling Tarmac Northern Ltd that its Ladybridge Quarry proposal was in the wrong place, was not required and would cause massive damage to one of Britain's premier archaeological sites.
The Thornborough Henges is a massive ancient monument complex in North Yorkshire, it's huge triple 240m earth circles (henges) are amongst Britain’s largest and finest. But these are only three out of many monuments in the Thornborough complex and they are not even the largest; an accolade reserved for the mighty mile long Thornborough Cursus (ceremonial causeway).
One of our least known but most important ancient monuments, Thornborough is the only "triple" henge complex in Britain, and may have played host to the largest religious gathering seen in prehistoric times. Ladybridge Farm is home to a camp built by these Stone Age "pilgrims" and according to many archaeologists, is one of the most important of its type in Britain.
Ladybridge Farm is the subject of an application for one of Yorkshire’s largest gravel quarries and up until recently, the word on the street was that this was a "done deal" despite the proposal being outside of the local councils Preferred Area’s for quarrying and at a time when North Yorkshire is overproducing gravel by almost the same amount as it’s planned output. Both of these points are serious breaches in council policy.
However, Tarmac’s bullish PR gave way to a humble acceptance of fact this week when in a dramatic turn of events the company were forced to request a delay in the planning application; North Yorkshires planning officers had recommended that the application be denied. The reason; proposal was in the wrong place, was not required and would cause massive damage to one of Britain's premier archaeological sites.
It was English Heritage's view that proved decisive, its response to the application stated "The archaeological deposits within Nosterfield Quarry are clearly of national importance and will be destroyed by the proposed extraction."
For some time Tarmac have tried extremely hard to ignore the fact they are quarrying in one of Britain's largest and most important monument complexes. Regarding the archaeology on Ladybridge it said "the evidence is thin and scattered", of the impact of the proposal on the monument complex they have said "it will have no impact on the Thornborough Henges". In fact the latter comment has become a mantra - Tarmac believe if they say it often enough everyone will believe them.
So how is it that Tarmac cannot see the importance of the 5,000 year old archaeology at Ladybridge Farm? Mike Heyworth, Director of the Council for British Archaeology speaking at the planning meeting said the area was "Internationally important", English Heritage recently said the Thornborough complex was the "most important ancient site between Stonehenge and the Orkneys" and have confirmed Ladybridge formed part of it.
Tarmac's archaeologists have worked tirelessly for more than ten years - Tarmac paying almost £40,000 per year in order to record "the largest concentration of Neolithic finds of this sort so far in the North of England", as well as the worlds only Mesolithic double pit alignment - a twin row of more than twenty pits in parallel, possibly the first real evidence for Mesolithic ritual activity in Britain. In all, Tarmac has excavated more than 450 archaeological features, many of which, campaigners claim, were nationally important and should have been preserved in situ in accordance with government guidelines. Nonetheless, one would think, it should have come as no surprise that the field next door (Ladybridge), would contain exactly the same sort of remains and that it might get in the way of their application somewhat.
So far it has taken more than a year for the application to get to this decisive stage, it was submitted by Tarmac to North Yorkshire County Council in June 2004. Ordinarily, a company would be crying foul by this excessive delay but in this case, just about all of the waiting is down to Tarmac.
The initial application failed to include the Archaeological Impact Report, in fact, Tarmac did not complete its investigations until long after the application was submitted. Maybe the company thought it could get the application granted on the assumption that no important archaeological impacts would be found. Strangely, the Statement of Works for the archaeological evaluation was agreed in September 2003 yet the final report was not submitted until May 2005.
When Tarmac finally submitted the archaeological assessment, it was clear that the work done proved the importance of the site, but failed to show the true extent of the archaeology. English Heritage recommend that Neolithic landscapes such as at Thornborough need to have around 10% of the subsoil area sampled in order to fully understand the nature of the archaeological remains of the site.
Tarmac had only performed a 2% evaluation of Ladybridge, and the report that was submitted failed to include some areas earmarked for sampling.
Nonetheless, the report did include news of seven Neolithic features - many more than campaigners were expecting to be produced with such a small sample. This information was sufficient to allow English Heritage to confirm that the site was of national importance - So far, something in the region of five similar sites have been found in the whole of Britain. Ladybridge has been confirmed as one of Thornborough’s "Ritual" settlements – the only question remaining is how much of the site does this nationally archaeology occupy?
Tarmac also failed to include the mitigation strategy for the archaeology when they submitted the archaeological assessment and for a while it looked like they expected the planning committee to determine the application without any specific plans as to how to deal with such rare and important remains. The presumption in the national guidelines is for preservation in situ.
In July 2005 the mitigation plan for Ladybridge was at last submitted, the planning meeting just weeks away. But before the plan could be seen by many of the consultees Tarmac ushered in the "fog of war" by announcing they intended to make a "gift to the nation" of several areas of land they recognised they had no hope of quarrying.
The confusion was for the consultees - just a few days after the announcement they received the mitigation strategy that offered to give the land only if they were allowed to quarry Ladybridge without needing to respect the need for preservation in situ for any archaeology within Ladybridge.
North Yorkshire’s Minerals Plan states "Proposals for mining operations ... which would have an unacceptable effect on nationally important archaeological remains....and their settings, will not be permitted."
Given that English Heritage had confirmed the importance of these remains, it should have come as no surprise to Tarmac when the week before the planning meeting NYCC Planning Officers recommended that the Planning Committee should refuse Ladybridge application. But apparently, this came as something as a shock to Tarmac, for at the last minute, just days before the application was due to be determined by the council they requested a delay.
The reason for the delay is according to Tarmac "give time to discuss the archaeological aspects with English Heritage in more detail and hopefully reach an informed decision based on additional factual evidence if required" apparently Tarmac are still far from keen to go back and finish the job.
In reality, a major part of English Heritages objection was "English Heritage believes that the archaeological evaluation has failed to adequately characterise the deposits within the Ladybridge Farm site". Since Tarmac had failed to work out just how extensive the archaeology was, EH had no alternative but to rule the entire site as being of national importance.
Tarmac have been forced to go back and perform more extensive archaeological work - probably involving some 400% additional soil stripping; the plan is to be agreed with English Heritage.
Campaigners are perhaps not wrong to be concerned about this latest turn of events; for a start, Tarmac have agreed to have a new archaeological assessment completed by December 2005. As seen above, the previous 2% sample took 13 months to complete AFTER the strategy was agreed; Tarmac expect to have a new strategy agreed, archaeology done, specialist reports received, report written, mitigation strategy written in a handful of weeks and with winter approaching!
Perhaps more seriously, Tarmac still appear to be denying all interpretations of Thornborough as a great monument complex whose entirety tells a story of perhaps one of the greatest creations seen in Britain.
This does not bode well for negotiations with English Heritage and maybe campaigners calls for external archaeologists to be called in are not without merit. The archaeology on Ladybridge is of national importance and any further investigations carried out on Ladybridge need to be carried out with that in mind. If Tarmac cannot agree even on this basic interpretation then the process is doomed to fail.
http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/824735.shtml
