23rd July 2010, 09:59 AM
Dinosaur Wrote:This is probably the most useful thread on here on ages and just for once I can actually get online of an evening - street full of b***dy students hogging the broadband normally :face-approve:...worth delaying my tea for a quick post and a small flagon of wine....
Steven, how do you react to developers who've got ahead of the game and already commisioned a DBA and include full mitigation proposals with their initial planning approach? - that's what we try and steer our regular clients towards and very often it's waived through with barely any comment from the curator as long as its thorough and straight-up and well thought through
(ignore the following couple of words, my 'delete' button seems to have packed in, maybe the evening's not going so well after all!
;even have)
Hi
Well, it does depend on the quality of the work but if it came from a RAO (or another unit who stated they followed IFA, or the archaeologists is a member of the IFA) I hadn't dealt with before, then of course I would question why they felt it was ok to carry out a piece of work without first contacting me to agree the PD to conform to IFA Standards and Guidance (S & G DBA 3.2.5) and if they were recommending further work I would want to know why they also by-passed the S & D requirements to discuss this with me (S & D DBA Annex 2 Conclusions). Of course many of the units who work regularly in my county already know the requirements and agree these with me before submitting.
I already receive many DBAs produced for developers sometimes with recommendations for further work, or saying no work required. I would say that 40% of the DBAs for larger sites just don't look at a wide enough landscape (often they restrict themselves to 500m around the site) and often say no further work is required so I simply do not accept them. I have even been to appeal on these issues (a few times now) and always had my decision upheld by the Inspector. If the developer or their archaeologist had come to me first I could have discussed the requirements for the scope of the work therefore negating the costs (to both the developer AND the public purse) of the appeals!
I'm not taking an ideological stance here, or an anti consultant advising developer’s pre-app, I welcome early involvement, what I'm concerned about is developers (and my council) wasting money and time which could all be sorted out simply by communication with the LPA archaeologists AND actually following IFA S & Ds!
If there were no impartial curatorial advice to LPAs and they accepted the developer’s submission then which archaeological company is going to get most business, the one that suggests further work or the one that consistently advises NO work is needed. Well at that point I can see the death of lots of archaeological units as work plummets! If we've learnt one thing from the introduction of competitive tendering into archaeology it's that it opens it up to unscrupulous practices like any other activity and it’s therefore important to ensure LPAs have proper advice.
After all light touch regulation works so well doesn't it?
Steven