18th April 2012, 06:54 PM
It's a difficult situation really for both sides (speaking as someone who's been both a development control planner and an archaeological advisor). Unless the local plan has areas of special archaeological interest or SAMs marked and acting as an alert, your average development control planner is unlikely to think about archaeology when they're initially assessing an application to decide who to consult, whether their archaeological advisors are in-house or located elsewhere. On the other hand, the shear numbers of planning applications made (especially across a whole county- I had 9 planning authorities to monitor) makes it hard for archaeological advisors to catch every application. Most weekly reports provided to interested bodies by LPAs tend to be simple lists of addresses, so it's not as simple as running a check using GIS methods.
It's my understanding that GLAAS act as the archaeological advisors for most of London, and look after London's HER.
Education of development control planners helps (most will be interested as it helps to build their CPD logs for the RTPI) while good relationships between county archaeological advisors and building conservation officers in districts and boroughs (your eyes on the ground) can catch applications that otherwise would get away.
It's my understanding that GLAAS act as the archaeological advisors for most of London, and look after London's HER.
Education of development control planners helps (most will be interested as it helps to build their CPD logs for the RTPI) while good relationships between county archaeological advisors and building conservation officers in districts and boroughs (your eyes on the ground) can catch applications that otherwise would get away.