Here is the text of RESCUE's letter of objection to the extension of quarrying at the Thornborough henges site.

RESCUE etc

DATE

Mr. C. Jarvis
Mineral Officer
Minerals and waste planning
Planning and Countryside Unit
County Hall
Northallerton
North Yorkshire
DL7 8AH

Re: Planning application for the proposed extension of sand and gravel workings at Ladybridge Farm, Moor Lane, Thornborough (C2/92/500/53)

Dear Mr Jarvis,

            I am writing as Chairman of RESCUE: The British Archaeological Trust to express the grave concerns that the Trust has over the proposed extension to the Nosterfield sand and gravel quarry at Ladybridge Farm, Thornborough.

            RESCUE is a registered charity with no ties to any other government or public body. We seek to promote the interests of archaeology throughout the British Isles and seek to maintain the position of archaeology as a vital part of the nation's cultural life.  Further details of our aims can be found on our website: www.rescue-archaeology.freeserve.co.uk.

            Having looked at the issues surrounding the case for an extension of the Nosterfield Quarry (as covered in our publication Rescue News, numbers 91, 92 and 93) we have grave concerns as to the impact that the proposal will have on the archaeological and paleoenvironmental deposits in the area of the proposed extension.  We note that large areas of the landscape surrounding the Scheduled Ancient Monuments have already been lost to gravel extraction and that the area of the proposed extension represents an important surviving element in the archaeological landscape and one with known areas of archaeological significance (as highlighted in the Environmental Impact Assessment (E.I.A.) produced to support the planning application).  We also note that, while the archaeological and paleoenvironental resources currently known to exist on the site are of great significance in their own right, they would appear to represent only the most visible of those which are actually present (E.I.A. Non-Technical Summary paragraph 78) and that, to date, no detailed survey or assessment of the archaeological resource has yet been compiled or presented for detailed comment or peer-evaluation.  This is a matter of grave concern as it would appear that the planning application has been presented without the necessary consideration having been given to the character of the archaeological resource.  This would be a serious omission under any circumstances, but in the immediate vicinity of a site of international significance, as we believe the Thornborough henges complex to be, it would seem to render the application document seriously deficient from an archaeological perspective.  Given this omission, RESCUE will be looking to make further detailed comments on the application once the results of a full and detailed archaeological assessment have been published.  It is to be hoped that the timescale proposed will allow adequate time for such comments to be made and considered before any final decision is made on the application.

The nature of the site and the existing evidence for human activity throughout the prehistory would imply that archaeological and paleoenvironmental deposits are widely dispersed across the area of the proposed development and include a variety of types of deposit.  Given the results of work carried out on the sampling strategies and methods of evaluation in archaeology (Hey, G and Lacey, M.  2001 Evaluation of archaeological decision-making processes and sampling strategies Oxford Archaeological Unit) it would seem unlikely that the conventional methods of impact mitigation will adequately do justice to the wealth and value of the archaeological resource which is the Thornborough landscape.  RESCUE is of the opinion that the rejection of the planning application and the institution of a careful regime of management is the only way forward for this nationally and internationally important landscape.  In this, we concur with and support the objections made by English Heritage as reported in RESCUE NEWS 93.

We call upon you to reject this planning application and to view with extreme scepticism any future plans for the extension of quarrying in this area.

Yours sincerely