Turning Bosworth Field into test track would be 'travesty' warn historians and MPs

Historians fighting to stop part of Bosworth battlefield from being turned into a test track for driverless cars have made a final plea to councillors ahead of a crucial vote on Tuesday.

The Battle of Bosworth on August 22 1485 ended decades of civil war in England and ushered in the Tudor dynasty but part of the Leicestershire site is owned by Horiba Mira who want to build a £26 million track for autonomous vehicles.

Dan Snow, the historian, television presenter and author of Battlefield Britain, warned that it would be ‘travesty’ if planners allowed the application to go ahead.

“There is no battlefield more important and more remarkable to visit than Bosworth,” he said.

“Once it is developed it is lost forever. I thought Britain was a country which provided the world with a beacon of how to protect our historic landscape. Yet this is a travesty.”

The new track would be built on 83 acres of land next to Horiba Mira’s existing vehicle test centre at Higham-on-the-Hill near Hinckley, Leicestershire.

The company says the new facility will create 1,800 jobs and allow companies from across the world to test driverless cars and fleets of autonomous vehicles.

But Kevin Brennan MP for Cardiff West warned progress should not be allowed to replace British history. The site was where Richard III was killed, ending the Plantagenet line.

“Progress is important but not at the expense of battlefields like Bosworth Field,” he told a debate in Parliament. “In Shakespeare's version of the battle, Richard III cried out "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" He did not cry "A driverless car! A driverless car! My kingdom for an autonomous vehicle."”

Historian and Bosworth author Chris Skidmore MP is also fighting the proposals.

"To build over one part of a battlefield site, threatens to set a precedent of permissiveness that could erode our ability to protect our battlefields across the country," he warned.

The new site is being developed in partnership with Coventry University and is partly government funded.

But recent archaeological investigations at the site have shown that shot from the battle still remains in the ground as well as other artefacts dating from the English Civil War.

Archaeologists believe that the threatened area could be where Henry VII drew up troops, and think some of the fighting may even have happened on the Mira ground.

A petition against the planning application had received nearly 15,000 signatures at the time of going to press.

Richard Armitage, the actor, who was born on the anniversary of the battle and has been touted to play Richard III in a film adaptation, who is encouraging people to sign the petition said: “It seems ironic that Richard III, whose remains were excavated from beneath a car park, faces another imposition.

“Historic sites like this, once taken are forever lost .”