17th September 2011, 12:36 PM
Unitof1 Wrote:dino are you working in wales for a council unit? you say that the consent was given without any evaluation but the job is now based on the assesment of the curator post determination who seems to be using the site strip to do an evaluation. Did you have control of the site stripping. When you say it worked out fine- what type of profit are we talking?
Not worked in Wales since 1990 and not worked for a council unit since 1997 if my memory serves me aright.
Long complicated history to the site, which to be fair I've not been party to all of. Despite the client having a fairly old consent (mineral) with an appallingly minimal archaeological tag line, new faces along the way have seen sense so a rather more sensible approach to the archaeology has been taken on all sides, with the client following recommendations from the curator as things go along - since all sides are being willing it all seems to work ok. However, with the usual amount of horse-trading etc I can't imagine any significant profit margins are happening on any side, all the budgets are pared to the bone with all the usual continual cost-trimming [and I can see the client's point, there's sweet f a profit on a ton of gravel at the moment, so they really don't want to spend more on archaeology than absolutely necessary] . Where have you got the idea that anyone is getting rich from British commercial archaeology? In any other industry margins of 30-40% would be considered barely adequate, whereas in archaeology at the moment just being in the black at the end of the year would be considered a triumph by anyone other than your good self - note all the units currently/in the recent past that appeared to have failed to surmount that particular hurdle....