http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-40547691

So some bright spark has decided that our beloved Lake District should be given UNESCO status.

Now I am all for conservation but history shows us that when we place these things in the hands of people who live miles away then it is a recipe for disaster, ( a bit like the pricks in Westminster ). Most people only visit the lakes in summer but it is a landscape forged by millenniums of weather, ( usually VERY wet ), hill farming and a singular lack of human intervention.

I do like the passing reference to Stonehenge and, as anyone who has had the misfortune to drive down that way of late will testify, what a pig's ear they have achieved with that.

Bit of a circular argument there Sir, a good few would claim that in such places it's the locals wot do the damage. 'Just a few extra square feet in my cafe' and 'desperately needed accommodation for my family' and 'social housing for local poor people'. What's so wrong with market forces here? Let the customers decide.

This is why I cited Stonehenge as the model. When it was a few sarsen stones in a field visited by unruly school kids and a few odd bods who called themselves Druids / new age travellers etc it had little or no impact on either the local economy or traffic. Then the boys in beige built a monstrosity called a visitors centre, closed off a main road and caused a continual traffic jam which they propose rectifying by building a multi-million pound, ( read taxpayer footed ), tunnel. The impact on the area has little or no advantages but an awful lot of detriment to the overall ambience.

Not the best of credentials for an organisation that supposedly has "conservation" as it's raison d'etre.

Grammar Police Warning

The plural of millennium is millennia

From what I read, both are OK.

If I remember my O'level geography right, the Lake District is a landscape forged by glaciation rather than weather as such.

Do you have specific examples of "these things" that have ended in disaster at the "hands of people who live miles away"?

Sorry, but this isn't true. From Wikipedia:

Sorry ! Obviously Wikipedia knows more than someone who actually lived close by for a number of years, ( 70's). They didn't have Specsavers then,
Seriously though, the 303 was the main artery, along with the A30, to the West Country, and yes it was busy but that was due in part to being single carriageway for most of its length. The addition of dual carriageway sections has had the effect of causing a "wave flow" in the traffic, and as any budding physicist will tell you if you pour milk too quickly into a bottle some will spill over.

On a side issue, though relevant to the original post, the problem has been exacerbated by those who think they know how to manage these things as opposed to actually knowing.

On the first point, the contours may not have altered a great deal in 10,000 years but the fauna and flora certainly has, and this is due in main to those who have lived and worked here over the centuries.

On the second? everything!

And water erosion, and frost erosion, oh and copper mining, lots n lots of that!

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j...rGdGNHjdhqKst4w

Lot of interesting facts on the subject here.

No, the landscape is basically glacial with U-shaped valleys.

Yes, you said that, but you haven't shown that to be true, and your example of the traffic jams on the A303 being caused by the visitor center is not supported by the evidence.

Grammar Police warning!!
It's actually "centre" on this side of the Atlantic!!
Oh and I thought the closure of the A360 at Stonehenge was done in an attempt to alleviate the jams there on the A303?

Give over, do we really need to nit-pick over spelling?



I wouldn't know, but the point is that the A303 has suffered from traffic jams for decades because it's a largely single-lane road that carries heavy traffic and because people have a tendency to slow right down to have a good look at the stones as they pass. Sir William's argument was that the traffic jams were caused by the visitor cente but the traffic jams existed decades before it was built and this spurious example was his only support for his argument that UNESCO would be bad for the Lake District.

I remember one of those queues - caused by the bottleneck at the traffic lights in the middle of Andover every warm bank holiday weekend - nowhere near Stonehenge.

I also remember clambering over the fallen stones at Stonehenge, a far better 'visitor experience' than today.

Market forces would ensure that houses were built all over the landscape, richer folk buying a nice view, poorer folk pushed out. Until of course, the views ceased to be nice owing to the encroaching housing estates. Market forces gave us the American suburban landscape - truly hideous; thankfully they came up with the idea of national parks to ensure that a few places would be spared market forces - one of the best US inventions.

My submission is that placing it under the auspices of an "outside" organisation does not in itself guarantee the continuation of the status quo. Is it of greater importance to generate prosperity in an area or maintain it like a museum frozen in time?
Little doubt World Heritage Status will assist the local economy but the cost to the environment is the footprint of the increase in countless walkers on the fells.
The "visitor centre" at Stonehenge is a monstrous blot on the landscape as opposed to a direct contributor to the traffic chaos. If the stones were not there the problem would still exist. Based on that premise if we moved Winterbourne Stoke and upgraded the 303 to dual carriageway for its entire length then it would benefit many, ( as did the Newbury bypass ), but is it right?

Incidentally, I have given your question over evidential support a little thought and to be honest most of it is anecdotal and therefore of little clout. Let us return to this in 100 years and see.

Surely our existing legislation deals with the potential for over development. In the case of the Lake District it's reinforced by the National Park rules as well. Arguably, by applying the UNESCO status, the Chairman is insulting our Governance by implying we can't or won't protect this area ourselves, so like some third world republic, we need help.

Wasn't me that started it on this thread!
Didn't you spot the tongue-in-cheek emoticon??

Fair enough.

I don't think your A303 example helps your argument.

Whether or not the UNESCO WHS designation helps or hinders the landscape, inhabitants, and visitors is open for debate and I suggest it depends very much on your perspective.

Yes, thankfully our existing legislation protects against the market forces you were promoting. UNESCO status is an irrelevance in those terms - it's benefits will be a slight increase in the promotion of the area as a tourist destination - in essence defeating its own aims if those aims are the protection of a rural landscape.

Interesting point though, does UNESCO status have any impact in British/European law?

It's managed through the usual planning legislation, much like an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The National Park designation already provides good protection and like you say the WHS designation is just kudos.

To be honest, it was more a poor attempt at irony on my part; driven by the erosion of the 'Green Belt' paricularly round London. I suspect UNESCO status has absolutely no impact on English law; save as a component of pleadings in defence of any proposed incursion, which gives a little more strength to those seeking to protect. As countless examples even round here demonstrate, we are pretty cavalier when it comes to protecting such areas.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-41227359

£1.6 billion just in case the sun decides to show it's face in the middle of December ? Plotus Lostus comes to mind .

Yes the 303 has a problem that needs addressing , and it aint going to be cheap but for that sort of money they could upgrade to dual carriageway from Amesbury to Honiton , including a new section going North of Winterbourne Stoke .

Why does traffic use this route over M4 / M5 when everyone knows they are going to be held up anyway ?

I surmise that if you are using someone elses money all they need to do is have austerity for another 20 years and it will be paid for .

I should imagine that one of the reasons is that it is about 35 miles shorter.
In these days of major concern about the emissions of cars (ref. the diesel debarcle!) maybe folks think this matters?
Also, if everyone currently using the 303 switched to M4/5 then I would imagine that they would become a car park themselves?

As an aside there was one comment from someone on the Jeremy Vine show yesterday who declared he wanted things to remain as they are as he and his kids enjoyed the slow ride past the monument and that this was of historical value to his children!!

Surprises me that no one has suggested moving the stones.

And the mountains as let's be honest they aren't in a very convenient location. My suggestion would be a straight swap with the Chilterns and that way they'd be more convenient for us in the south and I doubt the northerners would mind as whippets aren't good on mountains.

If stone age man can, ( supposedly ), drag the wretched things all the way from Wales , a low loader should have no problem taking them back .

On a par with the Elgin marbles it's a wonder that the Welsh office hasn't already petitioned . We could throw in Avebury stones as a gesture of goodwill .

On the matter of the marbles, given the state of the Greek economy, now would be a good time to offer them a few bob to settle the sale question once and for all. We could do it via their EU bankers whilst we are still technically 'in' and knock it off our final settlement. Job done; triples all round.

Not such a daft idea OTE . Certainly it is something on the table which at the moment seems singularly lacking .

Why not just give 'em back?

Which ? Stonehenge or the Parthenon coving ?
Next we will be returning the Moon rocks .

They were taken from Greece whilst it was occupied by the Turks. If I'd bought a bit of French property from the Nazis in WW2, should I not feel a moral duty to return it to the people the Nazis took it from?

" Victoribus Spolia " seems in bad taste in today's world but it is a sad reality . I agree that they would probably be better off in a Greek museum but I can't see it happening .

Rather different situation; the Marbles were purchased by agreement from a legitimate civil authority in a time of peace. Rather like our dear Government selling off our assets at knock down prices back in the 1980s. Now, there's a thought, perhaps we should be demanding the return of our airports and such like back from their continental owners.

Well there are a lot of arguments that could be made there, but imagine the British Government selling off Treasures from Northern Ireland during the troubles. "Legitimate" on the face of it, but it would be inappropriate to be selling off treasures (not that I can think of any).

Morally, they should be returned. And the Greeks argue that it wasn't a genuine sale I believe.

Depends what you mean by 'treasures' of course, I tend to think that a network of very useful pipes which have been running round London for many years a 'national treasure' and should not have been sold to foreign interests. The Indians are calling for the return of the Imperial State Crown which they 'gave' their Emperor at the turn of the last centuary. Presumably the Greeks will be willing to recompense nations disadvantaged when they themselves had imperial designs. So, where does one stop?

If it wasn't a genuine sale, then the Ottoman Empire did have a legal system just as we had. Litigation could have been commenced in either jurisdiction; no one is above the law.....or is it just the decisions they don't like!

Being Welsh I demand that the bluestones be returned. Forthwith. 🐉

Being English I concur .

Being English I demand the Welsh be returned.

To POWAAH. I concur.

Bit of "non Covid" news for a change.
The Minister for Transport, (name is irrelevant as he will probably be moved on soon), has rubber stamped the construction of a tunnel on the piece of A303 adjacent to a few sarsen stones.
According to said minister "the experience of the visitor will be enhanced by not having traffic on view".
The tunnel, all £2 billion of it, will NOT increase the traffic flow, bring any form of relief to the inhabitants of Winterbourne Stoke and will quite literally drive a bulldozer through 5,000 years of history.

Why don't they just move the effing stones? Bloke with a low loader and they could put them somewhere that needs a tourist attraction.
Like Milton Keynes.

If you look here and scroll down to the map you will see that the project includes a Winterbourne Stoke by-pass so how it will not "bring any form of relief to the inhabitants of Winterbourne Stoke" I fail to see. Also the project will connect the two ends of current dual carriageway and will eliminate the Countess Roundabout so how it "will NOT increase the traffic flow" I also fail to see.

My beef is with the tunnel, which according to my understanding, will be single carriageway before merging into a dual carriageway at the Salisbury junction and continuing in the form of a by-pass. ASSUMING that is part of the same scheme and not one in the pipeline.
One would have thought the by-pass had preference and then a gradual upgrading until the whole route is dual.

Now I may be completely wrong and I will stand corrected, but there is no justification for a tunnel.