PRESS RELEASE Hillfort campaigners meet with heritage advisors

DATED: 9 December 2013

The Oswestry campaign group fighting Shropshire Council’s proposals to allocate housing by Old Oswestry Hillfort along with Oswestry Civic Society have met with English Heritage following their meeting this week with Oswestry Town Council.

Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort (HOOOH) said they found the meeting “both enlightening and very constructive”.

They added: ”We all agreed about the significance of the setting and how, during later prehistoric times the intervisibility between this hillfort and the Wrekin would have been paramount”.

The group have been strongly supported by leading academics who have shown circumstantial evidence suggesting that Old Oswestry Hillfort lies on an ancient route which would have locally linked through Whittington, Old Oswestry and Brogyntyn with a possible early historic market or fair within the vicinity of Old Port Farm.

“Based on this and numerous artefact findspots within the hinterland of the hillfort, this area is archaeologically very busy and further investigation is crucial.”

They continued, “What has become crystal clear is the critical nature of the archaeological and ecological aspects of the site to any consideration of housing allocation. Previous archaeological and heritage impact studies have been shown to be incomplete and insufficient.”

The HOOOH team were grateful for the advice from the two English Heritage representatives and have confidence that Shropshire Council’s policies of transparency, community involvement in planning and duty to protect one of the county’s most precious heritage assets will lead them to consider a thorough reviews of all existing studies to ascertain their quality, scope and relevance given the omissions as pointed out by RESCUE (The British Archaeological Trust) among others.

HOOOH’s petition against the proposed housing sites by Old Oswestry is at: http://tinyurl.com/hillfortpetition

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