"I think because the road over the Ribbon is so final and there's nothing to be done now"...
Yes, looking at the road in place makes you realise that all the stuff from Hereford and EH about preserving it for future generations hundreds of years hence was just talk. It has effectively gone, and those who should have saved it have been talking oleaginous, platitudinous thieves' cant - like they have been at Stonehenge and both north and west of Avebury.