Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[david3103]

My mum grew up around Stonehenge and tells me how she used to play on the stones back then. So they were freely accessible to all people for a few thousand years but suddenly not now which seems a shame. That said, with so much tourism I do think our heritage needs guardianship and maintenance because if every visitor chipped a bit off they would soon be gone and nobody could enjoy them in the future. And David is right about the good value English Heritage offer with that package. The only problem I've found at some of the heritage sites is you get a few moaners holding up the queue with their questions. I tend to sarcastically applaud these people if I'm patiently waiting behind.

Do you think they need guardianship behind a close, 2ft high rope for those who can afford to pay and guardianship behind a distant, 8ft high chain link fence for those who can't?

That presupposes that the significance of Stonehenge 'the site' is limited to the area inside the stones/ 2ft high rope.

Why do you think that Stonehenge should be free Tom? Or was it just an 'it was bad enough being asked to pay to get into Clovelly' moment?

[Jon MW]

My mum grew up around Stonehenge and tells me how she used to play on the stones back then. So they were freely accessible to all people for a few thousand years but suddenly not now which seems a shame. That said, with so much tourism I do think our heritage needs guardianship and maintenance because if every visitor chipped a bit off they would soon be gone and nobody could enjoy them in the future. And David is right about the good value English Heritage offer with that package. The only problem I've found at some of the heritage sites is you get a few moaners holding up the queue with their questions. I tend to sarcastically applaud these people if I'm patiently waiting behind.

Do you think they need guardianship behind a close, 2ft high rope for those who can afford to pay and guardianship behind a distant, 8ft high chain link fence for those who can't?

If nobody pays - how do they pay for the guardianship and maintenance?

I'm more surprised by how much heritage and culture is available for free rather than how much of it you have to pay for

[Bertpup]

I asked a lot of questions, including:

What gives them the right to omit poor people?

Is access to culture only for the better off?

What happens if I refuse to pay and enter anyway? Will I be arrested? What would I be charged with?

Understandably, I didn't get any satisfactory answers from the box office clerk or the security guard, but I did get a lot of murmured support, and even a smattering of applause from those waiting in the queue behind me.

I fully agree with you that in an ideal world Stonehenge would be free to visit. The decision would have been made many pay grades above both employees that you brought the matter up with. For someone who has worked both front line in the service industry and someone who makes the decisions It's not very nice when you are getting abuse over something which you have no control over and on their salary they would probably agree with you.

The problem with these situations is that its a no win for everyone concerned. You have got yourself worked up and would be in a bad mood for a few minutes. The people behind you will now have to wait longer and it might rile them up even more and the next people in the line start questioning the policy getting themselves worked up. So the queue is slowed down more. Meanwhile the poor cashier who has no part in the policy making is left with people who ultimately blame him/her for something which they played no part of.

Sometimes its better to just move on without saying it and if you think strongly enough about it you can always write a letter to the person who made the decision which might actually make a difference.

 

[atdc21]

Hi Tom, i used to look at things like that and think ' how can they charge me for that?' , but if no one paid it wouldnt be there in the future, everything costs so much to keep/run nowadays.
Someone has to pay and it will usually be the public, same with our taxes, we gotta pay, but im sure we all try not to.

[RED-DOG]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

[TightEnd]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Understand your point, but presumably the site itself/facilities have an annual cost to upkeep?

Perhaps £7 per head is steep for that, I don't know

In general there is an awful lot of "free" culture in this country, some amazing museums/sites/houses

Things like National Trust and English Heritage memberships are amazing value for money

In a perfect world, visiting all of these sites would be free (as I believe it all used to be?)

[Skippy]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

There are lots of things in life that poor people can't afford. That's capitalist society. There's nothing particularly wrong with objecting to capitalist society, but I'm not sure the best place to start the revolution is in the queue for tickets for Stonehenge.

[Woodsey]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Tell them to ditch their sky dish first then we can have that discussion 

[RED-DOG]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Understand your point, but presumably the site itself/facilities have an annual cost to upkeep?

Perhaps £7 per head is steep for that, I don't know

In general there is an awful lot of "free" culture in this country, some amazing museums/sites/houses

Things like National Trust and English Heritage memberships are amazing value for money

In a perfect world, visiting all of these sites would be free (as I believe it all used to be?)

That's £7 per head all day as fast as they can collect it, say ~ 100 people an hour, 10 hours a day....

The cost of the upkeep?  What would it cost to pay a bloke to cut the grass and watch that no one stepped over the rope?

[TightEnd]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Understand your point, but presumably the site itself/facilities have an annual cost to upkeep?

Perhaps £7 per head is steep for that, I don't know

In general there is an awful lot of "free" culture in this country, some amazing museums/sites/houses

Things like National Trust and English Heritage memberships are amazing value for money

In a perfect world, visiting all of these sites would be free (as I believe it all used to be?)

That's £7 per head all day as fast as they can collect it, say ~ 100 people an hour, 10 hours a day....

The cost of the upkeep?  What would it cost to pay a bloke to cut the grass and watch that no one stepped over the rope?

Haven't been recently, but I assume guarding it (over a sizeable area?) is a 24 hour operation to protect from vandalism etc

I also investigated and saw http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/12/stonehenge-threatened-wonder-of-world

Presumably some of it is remidial work on the actual stones?

I do think £7 sounds steep. I wouldn't think £7 was steep to get into (say)  Chartwell

I check Chartwell and its £13 to get in...

None of this stuff is cheap these days!

[Doobs]

For the record, I didn't hold the queue up, the clerk spoke to me while someone else took over the money collecting.

I made it clear to the person I was speaking to that I didn't blame them, and I wasn't rude.

I accept many of the excellent points made, but my question remains. What about those low-income families who genuinely can't afford to pay?

It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Understand your point, but presumably the site itself/facilities have an annual cost to upkeep?

Perhaps £7 per head is steep for that, I don't know

In general there is an awful lot of "free" culture in this country, some amazing museums/sites/houses

Things like National Trust and English Heritage memberships are amazing value for money

In a perfect world, visiting all of these sites would be free (as I believe it all used to be?)

That's £7 per head all day as fast as they can collect it, say ~ 100 people an hour, 10 hours a day....

The cost of the upkeep?  What would it cost to pay a bloke to cut the grass and watch that no one stepped over the rope?

New visitor centre is costing £15m or so.

 Just go to Avebury, you can touch the stones,  costs nothing,  no busy road, far fewer tourists etc. 

[MANTIS01]

The travel costs to Salisbury from a random location will be greater than £7 so pretty much everybody who decides to go has the budget to pay the entrance. I'm a big fan of this argument for total accessibility and think it's a noble cause but in the real world English Heritage must generate revenue to maintain their sites.

When I went to Stonehenge all I saw were busloads of tourists who wouldn't blink an eye at paying £7 after flying in from Japan or USA. English Heritage cashing in on their most famous/visited asset is a sensible strat as well cos then they can afford to maintain their less visited but equally important sites. So it's not about paying one guy to cut the lawn at this one site it's about Americans paying to maintain all of our old stuff, and for our free passes.

[RED-DOG]

What if they start charging £7 to visit the New Forest, or the Peak District National park?

[david3103]

What if they start charging £7 to visit the New Forest, or the Peak District National park?

that's a poor comparison. There's no charge to visit the Peak District, but Chatsworths isn't free
North York Moors are free, but Rievaulx Abbey isn't.
Streets of London are free, Tower of London isn't

[Skippy]

What if they start charging £7 to visit the New Forest, or the Peak District National park?

That's exactly what they do in Canada. It's pretty nominal though- you buy a 7 day ticket, or a 21 day ticket or whatever.

Edit: see http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/visit/tarifs-fees_e.asp?park=1