18th July 2011, 10:24 PM
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that only those who work within the developer / planning control system of archaeology actually understand how archaeology really works in this country. Redearth may be right and the condems are out to free up the system by getting rid of the professionals. It is however unfair to blame the few HLF funded community projects for providing what some may see as a viable alternative for tackling archaeology. The public are not on our side because they want to be involved in archaeology and the advent of commercial archaeology replaced the need for the last minute amateur rescue dig which if we are honest is what a lot of past community archaeology was. People saw a drying up of opportunities to take part in archaeology with out realising that it actually meant that their heritage was better protected. We need community projects and commercial projects not a mish mash of the two that only serves to get a bad job done on the cheap and degrades us as a profession