Southport Consulation

[Marcus Brody]

I have a child in school and have taken school parties on site tours of archaeological sites .... so I know the score
I have taught at University and run training excavations .... so once again I know the score
I have run community projects ....
.. oh and as for TV I have been there and done that in several different countries including the UK

These are all different situations to what the Southport Group appears to be proposing, which is access for volunteers to work on commercial sites alongside professionals. As I said above, this would be something that could be controlled by the Council stipulating that there must be a certain ratio of professionals present relative to volunteers, to ensure that the work is done to an appropriate standard. It wouldn't be directly comparable to a university or community project, where staffing levels are the sole preserve of the lecturer or society, such sites would be open to external monitoring by the Council's archaeologist, to ensure that the conditions attached to planning consent are met. If public participation was included as part of such a condition, the developer would need to comply - after all, the Council would have only allowed the development to go ahead on the basis that these conditions were met.

I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm an evangelist or apologist for the Southport Group - I do understand that the widespread use of volunteers could pose a threat to professional jobs if developers / contractors were allowed to use them instead of diggers. However, I'm also prepared to accept that there could be some benefits both for the public and diggers if this were implemented in a suitable way, in addition to professional staff.