BLINKRR Update: Media Coverage & Public Meeting on 7 December

November 27, 2012 by combehavendefenders

In the wake of recent media coverage of local historian Nick Austin’s theories regarding the site of the Battle of Hastings – including reports on BBC1 South East and  BBC Sussex Breakfast yesterday morning – Link Road opponents BLINKRR (Bexhill Link Road Resistance) are holding a public meeting with Nick Austin on Friday 7 December: 7pm, Parkhurst Hall, Parkhurst Road, TN40 1DE.

They are also urging people to contact Ed Vaizey (minister.culturesoffice [at] culture.gsi.gov.uk), Minister for Culture with responsibility for heritage (see BLINKRR’s draft email below).

BLINKRR’s template email to Ed Vaizey:

Dear Mr Vaizey,

As Minister for Culture with responsibility for heritage, please act now to save our national heritage.

A recent BBC1 South East News Today story (25th November), various radio interviews and items (inc BBC Sussex Breakfast 26th November), and many recent articles and letters in the Bexhill Observer, Battle Observer, and elsewhere, have discussed the claim by local historian Nick Austin, author of Secrets of the Norman Invasion, that the true site of the Battle of Hastings is actually in the Crowhurst Combe Haven Valley, and not at Battle Abbey.

Mr Austin persuasively argues that the Bexhill Hastings Link Road, which is scheduled to be built from this January, will destroy the battle site, losing forever, for Bexhill, Hastings and the nation, this most important heritage and the possibility of the locality becoming a World Heritage Site.

East Sussex County Council have done archaeological work in the valley but Mr Austin insists that ESCC must ask The Battlefields Trust, the independent battlefield experts set up by English Heritage, to examine the evidence on the ground, before road building begins. Astonishingly, ESCC refuse to do this.

In the last few days recently discovered evidence indicates the existence of a Norman Longboat buried in the peat marsh in the Combe Haven. If recovered, it may confirm that the site of the Battle of Hastings is in the Crowhurst Combe Haven Valley, and not at Battle.

This heritage question clearly goes far beyond the remit of ESCC and is undeniably a matter of national importance. Therefore, as a matter of urgency, please could you intervene to stop this failure in due diligence by ESCC before it is too late.

Thank you for your help.

I look forward to hearing from you.