Wordpress .htaccess can be updated? - [No]

Hi All,

I have strange problem. This used to work just fine. In gallery2 the rewrite plugin is a-ok.

But in wordpress it claims

Rewrite Validation Check: Failed (Help)
1. Wordpress Permalinks Active? - [Yes]
2. Is Gallery2 Rewrite Plugin Loaded? - [Yes]
3. Can Gallery2 Rewrite WP Paths be Set? - [Yes]
4. Is Gallery2 Rewrite using Apache Mod_Rewrite? - [Yes]
5. Wordpress .htaccess can be updated? - [No]

The gallery2 .htaccess is fine and gallery2 is happy to write to it (note the date)

[matt@monster:~/website/] ls -al gallery2/.htaccess
-rw-r--r-- 1 apache apache 1025 Feb 12 14:09 gallery2/.htaccess

But wordpress isn't (even though it has been written to by wordpress in the past??)

[matt@monster:~/website/] ls -al .htaccess
-rw-r--r-- 1 apache apache 1579 Oct 21 19:53 .htaccess

Ideas? I have double checked the paths in wpg2 to ensure it's not trying to create/update the .htaccess in the wrong place.