16th July 2007, 01:51 PM
I don't know the history of this project, but it is a bit harsh to imply that there may have been something wrong with the DBA.
DBAs are very limited in their capabilities, and all curators should know that. Generally speaking, they collate information on known sites and previous investigations, together with a trawl of certain primary sources. The only primary source that could have picked this up is APs.
If the feature was previously unknown and didn't show up on APs, and is unique in Europe, it is asking a bit much to expect it to be predicted in a DBA.
However, you would hope that it would be picked up in pre-determination evaluation - assuming there was some, which I would expect on such a controversial road scheme. However, given the 'keyhole' nature of evaluation trenching, it is quite likely that it wouldn't be recognised for what it is at that stage.
In the final analysis, however, this unique site has only been discovered because of this road scheme. If, as seems likely, it has no potential as a visitor attraction, the discovery of the site and its thorough investigation does represent a gain for the national heritage to balance against the loss caused by its destruction. How much weight you put on each side of that balance is the difficult bit.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
DBAs are very limited in their capabilities, and all curators should know that. Generally speaking, they collate information on known sites and previous investigations, together with a trawl of certain primary sources. The only primary source that could have picked this up is APs.
If the feature was previously unknown and didn't show up on APs, and is unique in Europe, it is asking a bit much to expect it to be predicted in a DBA.
However, you would hope that it would be picked up in pre-determination evaluation - assuming there was some, which I would expect on such a controversial road scheme. However, given the 'keyhole' nature of evaluation trenching, it is quite likely that it wouldn't be recognised for what it is at that stage.
In the final analysis, however, this unique site has only been discovered because of this road scheme. If, as seems likely, it has no potential as a visitor attraction, the discovery of the site and its thorough investigation does represent a gain for the national heritage to balance against the loss caused by its destruction. How much weight you put on each side of that balance is the difficult bit.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished