With the rise of a popular movement to protect the historic environment celebrated on television last night in Heritage: the Battle for Britain's Past, 21st century conservation charities, supported by English Heritage, today launch a new Heritage Help advice portal, bringing together for the first time the expertise offered by heritage organisations and offering support on saving and caring for historic assets.

The free information service, which has been developed by the Joint Committee of the National Amenity Societies (JCNAS), is aimed at local history groups and town and parish councils facing new responsibilities for the care of their historic environment under the recent Localism Act 2011, as well as individual owners of historic properties.

Heritage Help includes advice on:

working with listed buildings and conservation areas;
designation of historic structures and sites;
campaigning and the use of the media;
developments in legislation, policy and guidance;
forming local groups;
undertaking maintenance work; and
planning.

Heritage Help will redirect relevant enquiries to the websites of member bodies and associated organisations and will publish news and views from all the partners.

John Sell, Chairman of JCNAS, explains: “We are delighted to be launching this service at the same time as celebrations are underway to commemorate 100 years since the Ancient Monuments Act was passed, creating many of the powers still used today to safeguard the nation’s legacy of historic buildings.”

“The new Localism Act means local communities face new responsibilities to care for their historic buildings and infrastructure. Our new advice service aims to publicise the expertise and services offered by heritage organisations - particularly those in the voluntary sector - to help local communities save and find new uses for their historic assets.

”Heritage Help has been created by heritage professionals. It’s a ‘living tool’ which will continue to be updated, expanded and more interactive.”

Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative, says: “National historic societies like the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Georgian Group, do a great job offering an incredible wealth of support and free advice to people trying to secure the future of their historic buildings. So Heritage Help is good news. It brings together all that knowledge, making it more accessible to local groups caring for their local historic environment and I wish it every success in the future.”

Deborah Lamb, Director of National Advice and Information for English Heritage, adds:

"Groups and individuals who own or care for historic buildings can sometimes find it daunting to source useful information on how to look after them properly. This new website provides practical advice and valuable guidance to point them in the right direction."

JCNAS is made up of: Council for British Archaeology (CBA); Ancient Monuments Society; The Garden History Society; The Georgian Group; The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings; The Twentieth Century Society; and The Victorian Society.

Other partners involved in the development of the Heritage Help service include: Civic Voice, Council for Protection of Rural England (CPRE), Walworth Society, UK Association of Preservation Trusts (UKAPT), Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF), Black Environment Network (BEN), ICOMOS UK, Historic Houses Association (HHA), Churches Conservation Trust (CCT), The Heritage Alliance, Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC), Theatres Trust, Association of Small Historic Towns and Villages (ASHTAV), Public Monuments & Sculpture Association (PMSA), SAVE Britain’s Heritage, Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and English Heritage.

For more information visit the Heritage Help portal.

This is the lottery fund award: http://www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/Pages/F...UwjMlevNNI

And this is the tender document for the archaeology work: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.u...=MAR140202




saw this..
Tuesday 8 January 2013

A MAJOR new Scottish trail will explore the life and battles of King Arthur – following research that suggests the real Arthur was a tribal chief in Dark Age Scotland whose reputation was secured after he subdued the Picts at the turn of the sixth century.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-...r.19852573

as they say in the vernacular... OMG!!!!! or even WTF!!!!

WEll I know that the Archaeology is under control... and that will be done to the best ability... BUT can I put in an HLF grant application for the search for Merlins Palace... Saurons Cave and perhaps a Fairy Castle. -



Arthur.... Does a character from Fiction/Legend exist?

1) No
2) No
or 3) NO!!!

Well this seems very worrying!

Quote: Nick Boles, the planning minister, attended a meeting with some of the country’s biggest property developers hours after George Osborne’s speech on Wednesday in which he told them he was prepared for an acrimonious battle with countryside campaigners.



The Telegraph has obtained a recording of the meeting in which Mr Boles discloses that he is poised to axe the planning permission requirement for many developments. He indicates that the main purpose of a £15.5 billion government package to support homebuyers is to create a building boom.



The planning minister said he “couldn’t care who owns the bloody things”.



In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government would offer five-year interest-free loans worth up to 20 per cent of the value of new homes costing less than £600,000. It will also offer £12 billion of guarantees covering mortgages worth more than £120 billion. The schemes are intended to help 644,000 people buy homes over the next three years.



Within three hours of the announcement, Mr Boles spoke at a reception with senior figures from the property industry hosted by Savills in the heart of Mayfair, central London. He spelt out to the 150-strong audience that further deregulation of the planning system would be introduced, just weeks after the controversial new system of relaxed rules is introduced.


“Our simple view is that the fundamental idea of the planning system is that property owners should be able to do some things if they want to without asking anyone,” he said. “That’s what, you know, property rights mean.

“There are things that have impact that is substantial on the community, on neighbours, that then they need to go through a process, and what we want to do is we want to expand the number of things you can do without having to ask for planning permission.”

Mr Boles said that the Government had already proposed allowing home owners to build larger extensions and to make it easier to convert commercial properties for residential use. Planners have warned that this could damage city centres as business districts.
“I think we will be looking for more such liberalisations which don’t, never the less, fundamentally change the planning system and which in fact should relieve local authorities of some workload,” Mr Boles said.
The minister continued: “I will just simply read you a line [from the Budget] to give you a hint of what may be to come. 'The Government will consult on allowing further flexibilities between use classes to support change of use from certain agricultural and retail uses to residential use to increase responsiveness within the planning system.’ I believe that that might end up being quite significant.”
Mr Boles also said he was “determined to implement” plans to make it easier to turn commercial premises into residential homes and appeared to identify a date when the changes would be announced. “I’m going to say it now in public because then you can embarrass me if we don’t deliver it and my officials are going to all be writhing in their seats. The 30th of May.”
The comments come just days before planning rules, which were rewritten to help development, are due to be introduced across England.


There have been fears of a planning free-for-all because fewer than half of the councils in England have developed local plans which protect them from builders having free rein to build where they like.

Without a local plan in place authorities will have to use the new National Planning Policy Framework, which is biased towards “sustainable development”, when assessing planning applications, which campaigners say will leave them at risk of “damaging development”.


Mr Boles told his audience that only if councils had “five years’ supply of immediately developable and deliverable sites” would they “get to make the decisions”. He warned: “And if you haven’t, then you will have to accept that the inspector, reluctantly, will make those decisions and will make those decisions according to the policies in the NPPF and the presumption of sustainable development.”


Mr Boles said that he was braced for a fight over forcing through more developments.

Earlier this month Sir Simon Jenkins, the chairman of the National Trust, warned of a “war” between developers and local residents because of the loosening of planning rules.


“I think that this year is going to be a very, very difficult year in local planning because this is the year when all the
tough compromises are going to have to be reached,” said Mr Boles.


He said that he had taken “a bit of flak” in the past few months, but “it will be nothing compared to the flak that I will have to take over the next few months”.


“What I’m focused on is ensuring that more gets into the system – and consistently more,” he said. “This is the year when we’re going to flush out those areas which just can’t come up with the sites to meet the five-year supply.”


Mr Boles admitted that he might lose his job over the outcry, but invited the property professionals to meet up again in a year:

“And I might by then be a backbencher if the flak’s got really bad. But I hope that we will be able to say to ourselves, actually we’ve got over the worst of it.”


Mr Boles said he wanted to change the situation where Britain “is still one of the richest countries in the world where fewer people are able to buy a home at all, and fewer people are able to buy it before the age of 30 and fewer people are able to buy it without parental help.”


He told his audience that Mark Prisk, the housing minister, had “lot of pots of money to help make” major developments work.


The Telegraph’s Hands Off Our Land campaign persuaded ministers to water down the scale of their initial plans, in the months leading up to the publication of the NPPF in March last year.

Hello all,
can people please have a look at my recent digital democracy campaign......

http://www.digitaldemocracy.org.uk/debat...hp?id=4015

its something that concerns me, and in my opinion should concern all drivers............

Just in from the ever mirthful My Cartoon Version of Reality

http://conormchale.blogspot.co.uk/2013/0...o-you.html

Dear Mr.Kipling,

Because I sadly have no work
Will you give work to me?
I have dug a flower bed
And done some C.P.D.

With wiry limbs - and all my teeth
My friends say I'm quite plucky,
And I will gladly trade my youth
To get my clothing mucky.

Your company is to heritage,
(I've heard declaration,)
Like the kamikaze is
To prudent aviation.

Yours Faithfully
Emily D.

P.S. - I adore your French Fancies!


TO find out what Mr Kipling kippled in reply...
http://conormchale.blogspot.co.uk/2013/0...o-you.html

The IfA Research and Impact Special Interest Group is holding an Impact Week in the run up to the IfA conference Making waves; designing and demonstrating impact in archaeology and heritage in April.

Over the week of March 18th we are undertaking a survey to find out how the heritage sector defines, measures and views impact, and to find out some good/bad examples of this in practice.

You can take part in the survey through:
Twitter – using #IfAimpact
For non Twitter users follow the discussion on: https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%23ifaimpact
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ResImpSIG/

Please fill in the short survey on:
Survey Monkey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8J3LWZC IfA Research and Impact Special Interest Grou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Br...aeologists

Here you will find the list of British Archaeologists on Wikipedia...

The dear Digital Digging has suggested we up the numbers with the unsung heroes... the present day stars of the archaeological firmament... that illustrator who makes the past jump from the page. the digger who can make a section into a work of art. the photographer who does more than just snap a trench pic.

What do you say? shall we?

[h=5]Ceri drops this debate onto you

Open for debate

http://musingsofanunemployedarchaeologis...riate.html

[/h]

THE HOLLEYMAN ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURE 2013: LANDSCAPES WITH PEOPLE:Thursday 21 March 2013, 6.30pm in the new Jubilee Building Lecture Theatre, University of Sussex. Speaker: Professor Sue Hamilton of University College London. Landscape Archaeology concerns the relationship between humans and geographical space; landscapes as places that are socially used, understood and experienced by their inhabitants. This lecture will make a case for the central role of the fieldworker in understanding peopled landscapes of the past. The lecture will be followed by a wine reception. Free admission but please book via http://www.sussex.ac.uk/bookalecture
N.B. The Sussex School of Archaeology will be having a stand at the Holleyman Lecture. Please meet the staff and perhaps book a course!

The Sussex Lectures: Booking form : News and events : Alumni : University of Sussex
http://www.sussex.ac.uk

ON BOUDICA’S TRAIL: INNOVATIVE RESEARCH

A one‐day conference on recent work at Mancetter,with historical and military context.

Put it in your diary!

Conference fee, including buffet lunch, and refreshments:£25
Atherstone Civic Society members: £10
Concessions and group bookings on application

For booking form and/or more information, contact the conference co‐ordinator:
margaret.hughes@homecall.co.uk
02476 394216
or secretary@atherstonecivicsociety.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Atherstone...4681142609