Is there a North-South divide?

[Curator Kid]

This question has come up a couple of times on other discussions, and it seems fair to chew it over on its own. Is there a real difference in the "Archaeological Experience" in the North to that in the South of England? Are there different pressures affecting the way curatorial advice is given, decisions are justified and how that advice accepted by planners and planning inspectors? How does that change the way work is done on site (more watching briefs in the north seems to be a common theme). What could be the reasons behind this? Also, do units act differently in different areas - For example, I and colleagues I know in nearby counties find that northern-based units working in the area are sometimes recommending watching briefs as the next stage of work in the conclusions to desk-based assessments, when an evaluation is clearly warranted.

To start off, an abbreviated form of my previous posting said:

"I'm quite happy to recommend an evaluation on a one-house development, although it doesn't happen very often. I did this morning, on an undesignated site, based on information from the local society that medieval artefacts have been coming from the area. I'm quite happy to justify it to the planners (but rarely have to in any depth beyond a letter), and the question of whether or not it is going to cost the developers a prohibitive anount of money is not one I'm bothered about. However, I'm quite lucky in that house prices here are so ludicrous that the cost of such an evaluation would be swallowed up in most circumstances by the likely inflation of the house's selling price between the start of the development project and its completion.

I'm wondering if development pressures in the south mean that developers and planners have become accustomed to more stringent archaeological work programmes quicker than in the north, whilst the high selling prices in the south mean that the costs of such programmes are more readily absorbed or passed on the the eventual customer."

It seems there is a lot to talk about here - lets see if we can work out any regional trends...

Discuss!:)

[drpeterwardle]

North south divide - what country do you live in?
Curator Kid,said
"I'm quite lucky in that house prices here are so ludicrous that the cost of such an evaluation would be swallowed up in most circumstances by the likely inflation of the house's selling price between the start of the development project and its completion".

Please tell us which part of the country still has rising prices so that we can alll invest there?

There are difference from county to county, region to region in the way PPG 16 operates. The south is not characterised by high house prices and the north by mills, coal tips, and flat caps in any event.

In any event it is not the price of the new house that is important it is the profit margin. At present in the south-east profit margins are depressed so many small developers are not developing.

Curators should be bothered about the cost of archaeology causing a development to go ahead because it amounts to a refusal. A planning condition must be fair reasonable and practicable. At one appeal the inspector zapped the archaeology because it was too expensive.

The argument of watching brief/evaluation is a none starter - an evaluation is always cheaper in real terms particularly on a small development. The problem is if nothing is found on the evaluation then the cuaror still wanting a watching brief.

If nothing is found then there is no real issue with either a watching brief or an evaluation the problems and costs only starts when there is significant archaeology and cost.

Local Planning Authorites make several calls on the developers profits - contributions to housing, education, open spaces and similar. Add archaeology to that and the figures can eaily not stack up. There is also the issue of the social/affordable housing quotas.

One year Bloor Homes made 0.5% return on capital funding on their house building operations. Even with soft south east house prices archaeology can make developments not profitable.

A significant about of new houses in the SE are social/affordable housing where exceptions to the planning system have been made and are projects funded by the state and undertaken by not for profit organisations.

Peter

[troll]

In the south,Stonehenge is now the focus (if not a flawed stalemate)of much attention and care. Thornborough is the subject of ravaging by gravel extraction and mass muppetry. Divide?

[the invisible man]

Should decisions on whether a "finite resource" such as archaeology be solely based on the cost to a developer? If the archaeology has a value, both monetary and cultural (as I presume we here all believe it does) if a developer cannot afford it then so be it, I suggest that it is right and proper that the development does not go ahead.

Archaeology has an absolute, not a relative value. Or, the same remains in different parts of the country or different circumstances, are the same remains and have the same real value. It cannot be right for their location in our present landscape to cause one to be treated proparly and the other trashed.

Today, Bradford. Tomorrow, well, Bradford probably.

[Hugh]

In my experience yes there is a divide.
I know of one example where in a Northern county the DC officer only put a short watching brief on a development in the centre of a small medieval town. A while later he got a call from the new English heritage officer for the region saying how disappointed he was that he hadn't asked for pre-determination evaluation. The DC officer replied with a: there wont be anything there and b: the planning officers wont put on evaluations unless you can REALLY justify it.
Anyway the new EH bloke wrote to the Borough planning officers asking to meet them to discuss the matter to which they replied "We don't see any benefit in having a meeting with a minor central government bureaucrat".
Basically it goes like this. The archaeology in the North is generally less complex (a good assemblage of medieval pot sherds from an excavation in some counties is a dozen) and the planning officers hate anything that gets in the way of "regeneration" so justifying the planning conditions can be extremely difficult.


Doesn't ring a bell :?

[Sith]

Any chance of further and better particulars about which bit of "the North" you're talking about? (obviously not the actual place or curator involved - AUP and all that).

I have to say that this doesn't really fit my own experience of working up country, where we usually involve EH and the DC archaeologists from the outset.

D. Vader
Senior Consultant

Vader Maull & Palpatine
Archaeological Consultants

Not just there for the rotten things in life like a blocked wormhole

[Cautionary Tale]

quote:Originally posted by the invisible man

...Archaeology has an absolute, not a relative value. Or, the same remains in different parts of the country or different circumstances, are the same remains and have the same real value. It cannot be right for their location in our present landscape to cause one to be treated proparly and the other trashed.

Today, Bradford. Tomorrow, well, Bradford probably.


I had a particular issue with something along these lines recently to do with ridge and furrow field systems. Until recently, centrally there were more in existance therefore protection for them was less than those in for example Hampshire where there were fewer. I can't say I disagree with your point Inv Man, but certainly I would say that all archaeology has a baseline importance, with some being more so (i feel myself moving towards all archaeological sites are equal, its just some are more equal than others - misquote heaven). This goes towards the point of dealing with the archaeological resource on a regional basis, and possibly from the curators point of view picking the fights you think you have a cat in hells chance of winning (which is a thoroughly shabby state of affairs:().

[BAJR Host]

Sad but true.... often we feel we have to fight that which we can win rather than expend all our time trying to win that which we can't...

ie... in scotland we stand more chance of forcing an issue on a Roman (rare) field system rather than a medieval opencast mine in the Lothians (common) or a golf course (deemed important to Scotland) than a croft... (we have lots of those don't we ... er... at this rate... we won't)

A regional analysis of what is and is not important is both good and dangerous, but in a way goes along with what I was thinking about education as well. Teach History ... yes! add to that the regional background and it all makes sense... ie... ROman Villas actually mean nothing to people in Aberdeenshire as they do not have any... their ROman history is 'different' to Sussex. in contrast... Brocks play a vital part of the regional history of NorthEastr Scotland, but are really not that important to those in Sussex. (not meaning they should not be taught... but regional bias should also be pushed to the fore)

In general I agree that some form of regional catagorisation of what is important should be implemented. I had the feeling that HIstoic Scotland 'new' system for scheduling was taking that into account, which for HS is impressive foresight.

Another day another WSI…

[eggbasket]

quote:Originally posted by BAJR Host

In general I agree that some form of regional catagorisation of what is important should be implemented.

Is this not much the same as developing regional research agendas? Many places in England already have those, but they seem to be applied somewhat irregularly, and I have seen them used as an excuse to record a minimal amount of detail on development sites so they do not always work as intended.

It would certainly be interesting to see a more regional flavour imparted to history lessons in schools through this approach, and I might have enjoyed history more in school had this been done. On the other hand, I only really started to enjoy history when I got to university, and realised that the "facts" were not as absolute as I had been led to believe in school.

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Periphrastic Sesquipedalian

Preternatural eventuation is an amaranthine potentiality

[Sith]

quote:Originally posted by BAJR Host

in contrast... Brocks play a vital part of the regional history of NorthEastr Scotland

Brocks? Is that a BADGERism? ;)

D. Vader
Senior Consultant

Vader Maull & Palpatine
Archaeological Consultants

Not just there for the rotten things in life like a blocked wormhole

[Cautionary Tale]

What are these 'facts' you speak of. They have no place in archaeology :D I always measure the 'possibly' factor of my reports before they get sent. Any fewer than one a paragraph and I haven't done my job properly ;)

I would add myself to the HS fan club too. Information has never been so accessable, which should feed back into research frameworks. I would have to say that the enthusiasm of the DC does influence things: without mentioning names for fear of seeming sycophantic, a certain DC I used to deal with managed to find funds for research projects (whether big or small wasn't really the point, it just kept research going), and judging by recent conversations they still do (even though they've moved up the country a bit).

[Hugh]

quote:Originally posted by Sith

Any chance of further and better particulars about which bit of "the North" you're talking about? (obviously not the actual place or curator involved - AUP and all that).

I have to say that this doesn't really fit my own experience of working up country, where we usually involve EH and the DC archaeologists from the outset.



Afraid not, it might make things a bit too obvious. The reaction of that particular DC officer to developments is always in proportion to the archaeology, and he never misses a thing. There can be problems however with the planning officers releasing the conditions before everything is sorted :(
A lot of good work is done in the area and the curators have a good relationship with EH and, as far as I can tell, the contractors.
The planning officers might be more interested if the archaeology was as "interesting" as it can be in the South, but it isn't and the DC work is differant in proportion to that.

Doesn't ring a bell :?

[Sith]

quote:Originally posted by HughThe planning officers might be more interested if the archaeology was as "interesting" as it can be in the South, but it isn't and the DC work is differant in proportion to that.
Eh? Maybe someone needs to educate planners about the need to assess just how interesting the archaeology is before they allow a developer erase it for good! Am I mis reading this or are you actually acquiessing to the view that the archaseology in the North isn't as interesting as that in the south?

Most sites aren't Stonehenge so maybe we should just bulldoze all the stuff that that isn't scheduled and save the planners from having to think too hard and ourselves the worry. :(

D. Vader
Senior Consultant

Vader Maull & Palpatine
Archaeological Consultants

Not just there for the rotten things in life like a blocked wormhole

[Curator Kid]

These are the sort of things I was thinking of when I started this thread. Surely it's got nothing to do with how "interesting" the archaeology is? (Funnily enough, I've always been rather jealous of northern archaeology - we have no Vikings at all where I work, and the Romans didn't really bother much either...). We all use exactly the same set of Government Guidance documents, English Heritage papers, etc. as everyone else in the country to base our policies on - yet protection/mitigation regimes vary, and appear (from what I hear) to be more robust towards the south, where we seem to have an easier time getting our point of view across to the planning officers (not the Planning Inspectors though - now there is a rant all of it's own...). Is it a matter of being more vociferous about the value of the resource? Are we fighting a battle against the tide of development in certain areas? Maybe we need to fight our corner better... but how? And in what arena?

[achingknees]

Just a thought. Could some of the differences in implementation (if they exist) be related to differential regional development? When PPG16 came in there was a development boom in the south. Indeed the polluter pays principle was already being used in some areas e.g. London in the 1980s. Other areas have only seen an increase in regeneration in more recent times.

[Cautionary Tale]

CK - i'll publicise my idea for a head banging session with ALGAO, ODPM, EH, CBA and IFA. This group should be their own arena, after all if something is agreed between these groups then all archaeology will be done that way.
EH already go some way to establishing standards (eg: MAP2 is pretty much universal, even if the follow-up is exactly perfect - I'm choosing my words carefullyB):D)why not expand it, if this was linked up with PS (whatever number) it would effectively be binding for development work. Level playing field ahoy. Would this not be good?

[Hugh]

quote:Eh? Maybe someone needs to educate planners about the need to assess just how interesting the archaeology is before they allow a developer erase it for good! Am I mis reading this or are you actually acquiessing to the view that the archaseology in the North isn't as interesting as that in the south?

Most sites aren't Stonehenge so maybe we should just bulldoze all the stuff that that isn't scheduled and save the planners from having to think too hard and ourselves the worry. :(


[u]I </u> don't think it's less interesting, it's just that in some Northern counties the population appears to have been much less nucleated and dense as in the South, so a dig in the centre of a medieval town is often likely to come up with little more than a couple of shallow pits, and if your lucky the edges of the burgage plot. With the high turnover of planners it can be a struggle to keep the planners aware that pits and gullies can actually be interesting. It really shouldn't be a struggle to get conditions applied when archaeology is in the local plan, but it occasionally is.
Anyway it can't be all that bad otherwise we'd constantly be hearing about sites getting trashed, rather than one or two isolated examples.
PPG 16 does work in the North, just slightly differantly than in the South, as you would expect considering the areas have different archaeological remains.

Doesn't ring a bell :?

[troll]

Can someone tell me who polices planning authorities?

[Cautionary Tale]

As I'm sure any curators will tell you at length with tears in their eyes, its normally Planning Inspectors (who are want to take a dim view of archaeology judging by previous posts).

[troll]

Perhaps its about time then that said inspectors should be policed by tax-paying citizens via some well-aimed media attention...the term
"civil servant" is fairly self explanatory really......;)

[Hugh]

I'd like to see training in why environmental issues are important, with a focus on archaeology as one of the more neglected environmental aspects of developments. As far as I know they are only trained in the legal issues of archaeology, rather than why we study archaeology, and why it is important to modern society.

Where?

[drpeterwardle]

Troll asked "Can someone tell me who polices planning authorities?"

It is not the planning inspectorate that polices LPA but government and the electorate at both the national and local level.

[Cautionary Tale]

Sorry to Dr Pete and Troll for misinformation, misread a previous post.[:I]

(I really have worked in the field)

[eggbasket]

quote:Originally posted by drpeterwardle

Troll asked "Can someone tell me who polices planning authorities?"

It is not the planning inspectorate that polices LPA but government and the electorate at both the national and local level.


So, how precisely do the electorate police the LPAs? In my experience the planners just ride roughshod over the concerns of local citizens, if it suits their purpose.

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antiquarian

Manners maketh the man

[monitor lizard]

Eggy,

LPAs have a Planning Committee or similarly named group, who ultimately vote on whether or not to accept the planning officers recommendations, which is made of elected members.

A recent example would be the refusal of the planning application for Stonehenge:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.5437

It can go both ways.

Cheers,

ML

[eggbasket]

ML,

I realise that the Planning Committee votes on the issues. However, the mem-sahib and I have stood in front of these committees on a number of occasions and stated our cases to no great effect. My point really is that elected members, once in office, have no real accountability to their electorate until the next election, by which time it is probably too late, although there are some in our local council who wince whenever the see us. I recognise that it can go both ways, but from experience I believe that more often than not little or no account is really taken of the views of the people who are most likely to be affected.

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antiquarian

Manners maketh the man

[monitor lizard]

Ah.......sorry if I misunderstood.[:I]

Dunno mate.....political activism...at least some of them are wincing!

good luck

ML

[eggbasket]

Oh yes, they definitely wince. One of the councillors in particular always looks pained whenever he encounters us! :) Of course, some of them are just so up their own backsides that they are virtually impervious. :(

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antiquarian

Manners maketh the man

[troll]

Eggy-would`nt like to be on the receivin end either! Is it true that members of the public can stand up and give a 5 min view during planning hearings?:D

[Curator Kid]

If you're interested in the planning system and finding out some of the things you can and can't do, the easiest place to start is http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/ . For the appeals process, try http://www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk .

[eggbasket]

Well, we have certainly been able to do so at hearings although not just by turning up. We had to announce our intention to do so in advance. I don't know if the procedure varies by council, but we represented the views of our street regarding a proposal at one recent planning hearing; went along to it with speech all prepared and presented it, only to be met with a comment by one of the councillors to the effect that we would just have to live with the proposal, although less politely phrased. This, for me, represents the planning process. Effectively, it felt as though the decision had already been made and that they were just following procedure for show and not because they had any intention of taking into account people's views.

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antiquarian

Manners maketh the man

[troll]

Many thanx to you both.Will certainly study the links and see what can be done. Think there may just be some potential in this approach although I do of course take Eggies experiences on board. In the past, I have found that good old name and shame of councils/individul civil servents who behave like Mugabe in the press seems to have the desired effect.:D

[mercenary]

I've just found a startling example of an excavation mitigation in a northern town that would not pass in a southern one. (In my experience)

The site was a high profile and, I gather, controversial excavation in a deeply stratified and waterlogged area of a historic town, in which the archaeological contractor seems to have convinced the curator that rather than single context recording, a Mortimer Wheeler like grid of box trenches was the way forward.!!!!????????

The reason? I will paraphrase from the publication to protect the guilty as per the AUP.

"...the complex and disturbed nature of the archaeology... would be impossible to interpret by stratigraphic hand excavation. This was due to ... conditions rendering edges and interfaces almost invisible."

Unsurprisingly, the report is full of gems like "The majority of these pits were only recorded in section in the machine cut sondages..."

So presumably the features that were almost invisible in plan were perfectly visible in section? Sounds to me like archaeology done on the cheap, and the curator has allowed it.

Having myself recently done an evaluation in the same strat and waterlogged conditions in the same town I now feel very put out. Yes, it was difficult to see edges, but they were there and urban archaeology is often like that.

If I didn't feel that I would be breaking many of the IFA guidelines to best practice (despite not being in the IFA, I hasten to add), I might think that a precedent had been set and that I've massively overdone my site. Keep in mind that my site was an eval. dug single context plan! (not just single context recording), while theirs was an excavation. I hope the developer doesn't find out as he will rightly feel cheated.

So, my question to the southern curators out there? Would you have accepted this on your patch?

[Curator Kid]

Hi Mercenary.

I'm really hesitant to comment on the idiosyncracies of a particular site without knowing the full details, as sometimes there are site-specific reasons for seemingly peculiar methodologies (health and safety, access issues and contamination spring immediately to mind). It would be interesting to understand the whole chain of work on the site, to see how the mitigation methodology was arrived at. However, it doesn't sound much like what I would accept as "best practice" from what you've said. Single context planning/recording was specifically developed to use on complicated urban strat anyway, so I certainly wouldn't abandon it in the face of a "complicated" site with "almost invisible" feature edges. Quite the opposite in fact.

[mercenary]

Thanks CK. I won't abandon single context recording in the town either, although I feel a bad precedent has been set.

I don't know the full story either, but the publication makes no mention of contamination, H&S, or access issues in defence of the methodology. The trenches were safely stepped and not deep, and staff were not wearing contamination PPE in any working photos. Access likewise seems good, with the excavation located in an open site. Following stepping, an area of about 300m square remained to be excavated to satisfy the mitigation strategy, of which I estimate about 40% was dug, all seemingly by machine. The only real problem appears to have been waterlogging, which was the same on sites I have dug in the town.

Merc. Just wanting a level playing field.

[deepdigger]

So, is there?

deep

[mercenary]

What? A level playing field? I won't know that until I try a Mortimer Wheeler like excavation, which I couldn't in all conscience ever do.

[mercenary]

What? A level playing field? I won't know that until I try a Mortimer Wheeler like excavation, which I couldn't in all conscience ever do.

[RedEarth]

I never noticed this one before - am I too late?

Putting my professional Northerner hat on...

I have noticed a tendancy to play-down the potential of sites in many cases in North-west at least. This seems partially a result of the assumption that there is probably nothing to find so why ask for anything more extensive than a watching brief, and then, funnily enough, nothing is found. Part of the problem is that certain periods (the Iron Age, the Early Medieval in particular) are virtually invisible, and the less people try to look the less they find. This is then compounded by people who aren't used to the area seemingly confusing the diference between these types of sites producing very little in the way of obvious remains and them not existing at all (this isn't just a way at sniping at Southerners!)

The whole thing then falls into a vicious circle - we little idea know what to look for in terms of certain sites, so we aren't even sure when we've spotted them. Hence recommending only a WB when an evaluation might be more effective. This also leads to ludicrous situations where watching briefs might be carried out for weeks across say an entire pipeline of several kilometers, when evaluation of targetted areas would be more useful and cheaper.

The difference between what might turn up is also problematic from the point of view of what is important - a single ditch containing a few scraps of Iron Age pottery or any other finds would be regionally important in most of the North-West, I'm not sure it would cause the same level of interest in other parts of the coutry!

[Steven]

Hi Chaps
In certain ways every local planning authority has its differences and individual planners can have an impact on whether archaeology takes place as pre or post determination work.

I had a look at the Eden (Cumbria) Local Plan as a quick north-west example and the Archaeological Policies (which have been retained during the LDF phase so are still active) are well worded and strongly indicate that pre-determination evaluation is required on known or potential sites.

So, if the Eden Local plan is reflective of others in the North West, in theory (i.e. in policy terms) there is no difference between the north and south. However, elected members and by extension their employees (planners) have to take account of all material considerations and reach a balanced decision. This can mean (for example) that members decide a development's positive economic value outweighs the need for pre-determination evaluation.

I deal with seven different LPAs and I notice very different approaches to my advice. It is particularly noticeable that pre-determination evaluation is less accepted in the more economically deprived District than in the others.



Steven

[RedEarth]

I'm not suggesting that the counties in the north aren't interested, it's perhaps more the case that the perception, even amongst some archaeologists is that there is nothing to find. This often based on the assumption that all regions are like the south-east and that A: the sites are huge, B: They always have loads of finds, C: developers can afford to pay.

When faced with archaeology that is potentially significant, but not spectular to look at, it is difficult to appreciate if you've spent most of your career dealing with massive multi-phase sites with loads of treasure. If I had a pound every time I heard someone complaining about the archaeology being boring, even when it was quite good for the region, I would have at least £6.50! (As an aside, it is quite depressing how close in mentality to treasure hunters many supposedly professional archaeologists can be).

Anyway, this is probably straying from the point, which was that the perceived differences are largely in the eye of the beholder - it's just a bit unfortunate when the beholder happens to be someone writing recommendations at the end of a DBA.

As for developers being able to pay, it is obviously true that most of the country is not going to see a development the size of, and therefore with the financial imput of, T5 for example. Many parts of the country simply aren't going to see the sort of huge developments that provide the opportunity to have a really good look at the archaeology. Of course, if they did come about, it would probably be considered only worth a watching brief based on the 'negative' (in every sense of the word) results of previous work nearby. The difficulty is that if you work in an area where some periods are apparently almost devoid of artefacts finding a ditch on an evluation or watching brief is hardly likely to be a justification for further work. Elsewhere in the country the same sort of feature might have dateable pottery in it that points to something more significant. The ability to demonstrate that the former example is important would be quite a rare gift.

[Steven]

Hi
All good points, a lack of artefacts does make it difficult to impress groundworkers, particularly if the archaeologists find it dull.

This trend (I'm assuming its "true" rather than a perception) to downgrade the mitigation to watching briefs is very worrying and it may well be that the curators should be specifying that archaeological contractors/consultants must NOT include recommendations in their DBAs. I frequently do this and only accept DBAs with recommendations if I have agreed their inclusion prior to submission of the DBA. This way means the decision about further work is decided either in conjunction, or by somebody with local knowledge (i.e. me!). Hopefully, this means that decisions are based on local significance as well as regional and national, and reflect research priorities/gaps in the area rather than simply a value judgement.


Steven

[RedEarth]

quote:Originally posted by Steven


Hi
All good points, a lack of artefacts does make it difficult to impress groundworkers, particularly if the archaeologists find it dull.

This trend (I'm assuming its "true" rather than a perception) to downgrade the mitigation to watching briefs is very worrying and it may well be that the curators should be specifying that archaeological contractors/consultants must NOT include recommendations in their DBAs. I frequently do this and only accept DBAs with recommendations if I have agreed their inclusion prior to submission of the DBA. This way means the decision about further work is decided either in conjunction, or by somebody with local knowledge (i.e. me!). Hopefully, this means that decisions are based on local significance as well as regional and national, and reflect research priorities/gaps in the area rather than simply a value judgement.


Steven


I'm not sure anyone is in a position to determine whether the situation is true or just perceived, and I would have thought nothing short of a PhD's worth of investigation would be able to answer that one.

The curators I regularly deal with often do ask for recommendations to be excluded from the reports but at the end of the day they are still reliant on the interpretation of the archaeologist(s) on site to provide them with the information they need to make an informed decision. Otherwise they'd have to go out and do all the work themselves. It is probable that the 'problem' isn't as bad as it might be perceived but it's difficult to tell without some nation-wide comparison.

All I know is that the north-west never seems to shout loadly enough about its archaeology, and as a result it largely lays silent in response. Big up yourself, is, I believe, the correct modern vernacular?

[1man1desk]

Not 100% on-topic I know, but a particular section of Curator Kid's original post caught my eye, as follows:
quote:I'm quite happy to recommend an evaluation on a one-house development, although it doesn't happen very often. I did this morning, on an undesignated site, based on information from the local society that medieval artefacts have been coming from the area. I'm quite happy to justify it to the planners (but rarely have to in any depth beyond a letter), and the question of whether or not it is going to cost the developers a prohibitive anount of money is not one I'm bothered about.
I don't disagree with this in principle, but I am under the impression that curators, as local authority officers, are required to act in line with policy and on the principle of 'reasonableness'. Both policy and reasonableness in this case are defined by PPG16, which has this to say about evaluations and their costs:


quote:...it is reasonable for the planning authority to request the prospective developer to arrange for an archaeological field evaluation to be carried out before any decision on the planning application is taken. This sort of evaluation is quite distinct from full archaeological excavation. It is normally a rapid and inexpensive operation...
On that basis, a local authority (acting on the curator's advice) that had no regard for the cost when imposing evaluation requirements could be deemed to be acting unreasonably, and would lose any legal challenge by the developer against the requirement.

The same comments about cost probably don't apply to recording works carried out under a planning condition (as opposed to pre-determination evaluation), but even there the authority is required to be reasonable.

In that context, I have had discussions with one curator who told me explicitly that he saw it as his job to extract the maximum possible amount of archaeological investigation out of each development project, and he did not care whether the scale of work he asked for was warranted by the potential significance of archaeological impact. In my view, that was clearly unreasonable.

Another curator pushed to have a proposed development relocated into an area of higher archaeological potential, because that would give him the opportunity to make the developer investigate a site the curator was interested in. In other words, he saw the development as simply an opportunity to extract funding for archaeological investigation for research purposes. Again, manifestly unreasonable.

To bring it back on topic - both of these curators were located in the north of England, and neither of them is still in post.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[historic building]

I have always taken the test of reasonableness to represent a balance between the impact of the development and likely resource on site. The balance, and recommendations, are a result of weighting these two up. The extreme costs tend to arise for small, urban developments where, frequently, there is not the space for stepped trenching and some method of trench support must be employed.

Considering the many financial obligations on development imposed through legal agreeements even a detailed, lengthy urban excavation represents a very small outlay.

[1man1desk]

Posted by Historic Building:
quote:Considering the many financial obligations on development imposed through legal agreeements even a detailed, lengthy urban excavation represents a very small outlay.I am afraid that is not realistic at all.

It may be true if you are dealing with a very large, very high-cost/high profit development, such as a city centre office block. However, for the 'one-house develoment' originally mentioned by Curator Kid such an excavation would cost more than the whole of the rest of the development costs, and usually more than the capital value of the finished development. For many other developers, including small to medium-sized commercial developments, the archaeological work might be one of the largest single items on their cost sheet. Going to the other end of the scale of development size, I once saw statistics showing that on Irish road schemes, archaeological work cost an average of 4% of the total construction budget. That is a very substantial proportion.

My point, however, is not to say that developers should not pay for 'preservation by record' operations. Under the 'polluter pays' principle, if you can't afford to protect the environment then you can't afford to do the development, so prohibitive costs are not an issue.

My point really relates to evaluations, since that is what Curator Kid was talking about in the original post. These are not archaeological investigations in their own right - they are supposed to be a quick look to see if there is anything there that might need investigating (or preservation). I don't believe it is reasonable to impose costs so high at that stage, when you don't even know whether there would be an archaeological impact, that the developer has to abandon the proposal because they can't afford the pre-planning investigation. Bear in mind that not everyone is making a profit here - sometimes these are houses being built as the 'developers' own home.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[monitor lizard]

And how would you then propose reducing evaluation costs to whatever you consider to be reasonable?

It seems to me that there are only two ways to do this. Either under-cut tendering to such low levels that work is undertaken at a negative, or reduce the amount of evaluation area, if you are talking trenching. This quite obviously reduces the level of understanding across any site, and would increase the risk of remains of unidentified significance/volume/value being taken as a direct hit. Not good for developer or the archaeology.

See the Hey and Lacey PLANARCH volume for a very helpful discussion of evaluation percentages and strategies, which concludes that around 5% of a rural site gives maximium understanding for greatest efficicency.

ML

[drpeterwardle]

The purpose of an evaluation is not to characterise a site it is to provide enough infomation so that an informed planning decision can be made ie preserve in situ or an archaeological planning condition will be imposed. As soon as either of these thresholds is reached no more work can be demanded by the planning system.

Risk is a matter for the developers.

This is not to say that futher post determination evaluation may be neccessary to say define what the scope of the excavation is going to be. The Hey and lacey review is flawed in many respects - it calculates the percentage needed to find every site.

Peter Wardle

[vulpes]

That is not my reading of Hey and Lacey - the key quote from that publication is 'there can be no blanket solution' to evaluation. T'would be very easy and tempting to say 'oh just do 5% trenching' on all rural sites. When dealing with large sites a suite of techniques is often more appropriate. More a point of departure than a manual, I would suggest reading Appendix 2.

Edited for being gibberish.

[Steven]

Hi Chaps
An archaeological evaluation (in terms of PPG16) is only carried out to provide sufficient information to make a reasoned judgement concerning the likely impacts a proposal will have on any remains present. It is meant to be (and 1man1desk is right) rapid and inexpensive and is intended to supply information on the character, extent and significance of archaeological remains on a site. Of course inexpensive is a relative judgement so a £30,000 evaluation on a massive infrastructure project is (extremely) inexpensive but would be prohibative on a single 1 bed house.

It is unreasonable to make a applicant carry out work that is prohibative to the proposal, however, it is not unreasonable to require a small evaluation on a single or two house development, even if the evaluation comes to say £3,000-£4,000.

If the applicant considers it unreasonable they can appeal against non-determination (or if refused due to lack of eval). However, as I've won appeals with these circumstances Inspectors clearly agree that the cost is reasonable. So I cannot agree with 1man1desk that this

"developer has to abandon the proposal because they can't afford the pre-planning investigation"

is a "real" scenerio. If somebody owns a piece of (lets even say allocated) land and wants to get permission and then sell it on they should be in the position to outlay appropriate costs to get that permission. If they are not then they will have to sell the land at a much reduced rate to somebody who has got the funds. That's life, get used to it! Its the same in most economic situations, people normally need to invest to get a return.

It more realistic that people who can't afford a couple of grand for a small scale evaluation couldn't have afforded the huge sums of money required to buy a piece of allocated land!




Steven

[Curator Kid]

This all came about from a discussion of watching briefs on a different thread as I rather fuzzily remember. It was suggested that watching briefs were being used in certain (northern) areas, without evaluations being conducted beforehand to inform their purpose, as there was pressure to get developments underway. The original point, related to whether or not it was reasonable to request an evaluation on a site, if it was a small development proposal (for example, for one house). My own response was basically to say yes, I considered that it was indeed reasonable. I would want an evaluation to investigate whether or not any archaeological remains were present in an impact area, and if so, whether or not the development proposals were placing said remains under threat of destruction and therefore in need of mitigation. My original posting contains a quote from another post, so it's slightly out of context, and as mentioned, it's abbreviated too!

Generally, I wouldn't consider it all that reasonable to ask for a potentially cost-prohibitive pre-determination evaluation on an small undesignated site, and if I remember rightly, the example I gave also related to a post-determination evaluation, whereby the developer was able to calculate his costs and potential margins once he had a viable permission, with all the other conditions attached. Similarly however, National, County and District policies would support pre-determination investigations - particularly in an already designated area of known archaeological potential, and if this was cost-prohibitive then, as 1 man 1 desk suggests, the polluter pays principle applies and that's tough - exactly the same as if the cost of removing Great-Crested Newts or Slow-Worms or squatters from the site was prohibitive to development.

[RedEarth]

Getting this right back on topic...

One likely difference that there almost certainly is across the country (and this will even vary within regions) is that the more work that gets done, the more you find, so (potentially) the more reason there is to do more work next time. Obviously this is true of anywhere (I can think of examples where sites have been developed next to sites that were investigated previously and so have needed work), but in an area where there is perhaps more money and so more development (let's, for sake of discussion, call it 'the south') an idea of what is going on is going to be formed far more quickly, and knowledge improved at hell of a rate. Other areas, where there is less work (let's call it 'the north') are still relying on work carried out in the 19th century for information. Research and knwledge ends up lagging behind and as a result the potential of sites is always that little bit more difficult to determine. I never cease to be surprised by the number of publications, on developer funded projects or otherwise from other areas compared to the north (north-west especially). Is it because there is nothing to find? No, it's more like no-one is getting the chance to find it. Coupled with this is the apparent stereotypying of the archaeology of different regions - typified quite perfectly by Time Team: somewhere in the south will more often than not be a big Roman Villa or tasty prehistory, in the North, industrial. Obviously these cliches have their basis in reality (and I'm not suggesting Industrial archaeology is rubbish, far from it) but if the perception of what you are looking for and what is important is influenced by this then certain types of site are potentially going to get ignored or played down.

[1man1desk]

Posted by Monitor Lizard:
quote:And how would you then propose reducing evaluation costs to whatever you consider to be reasonable? I don't have a magic formula for that, and it would have to vary a lot according to the nature and scale of the development, the developer and the archaeology. However, we should be careful only to ask for evaluations under circumstances mandated by PPG16, only where really justified by the circumstances of the case, and only to address the purposes mandated by PPG16. Experience suggests that this is often not the case.

What I was objecting to was the apparent attitude that archaeologists are entitled to impose prohibitive costs on developers right from the outset, at pre-application or pre-determination stage, and before we even know if there is any archaeology there. That is a very unhealthy attitude that can only engender hostility and mistrust from those on whom we depend for goodwill as well as funding.

Curator Kid has now clarified that the post on which I was commenting related to a post-determination evaluation. Post-determination works are a different kettle of fish.

If the evaluation is being asked for to show whether there is an archaeological issue to address, then I would have to ask why is it happening post-determination anyway? On the other hand, there is a place for post-determination evaluation, where there was already enough info for the planning decision but not enough for a detailed mitigation design. Under those circumstances, the trenching (or whatever) is really the first stage of mitigation, rather than evaluation in the strict sense. Under these circumstances, cost is a much less sensitive issue, and my previous comments about 'the polluter pays' do apply.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[1man1desk]

Posted by Steven:
quote:I cannot agree with 1man1desk that this

"developer has to abandon the proposal because they can't afford the pre-planning investigation"

is a "real" scenerio. If somebody owns a piece of (lets even say allocated) land and wants to get permission and then sell it on they should be in the position to outlay appropriate costs to get that permission. If they are not then they will have to sell the land at a much reduced rate to somebody who has got the funds. That's life, get used to it! Its the same in most economic situations, people normally need to invest to get a return.I agree with what you say - but the sting is in your words 'appropriate costs'. I don't agree that 'appropriate costs' include 'prohibitive costs' at pre-application stage.

Also, your post assumes that all development applications, including small ones, are commercial in nature (i.e. the main motivation is return on investment). What I had partly in mind in my post was two cases relating to domestic applications - one new build, one extension - where pre-determination evaluation was required. If the curator had taken an onerous view of the aims of the evaluation, and didn't care whether the cost was prohibitive, then neither of these people would have been able to proceed.

In one of those cases, the evaluation results were negative - but the curator still asked for a watching brief during the actual building works, adding to the costs. Again, the results were negative. This was not in a designated area, or in an area of particularly high potential - it was just a curator being cautious, and in the process spending a lot of someone else's money.

I don't know the outcome of the other case.

1man1desk

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