Should an archaeologist recommend a development in the planning application comments

[Marc Berger]

I must admit that I am not all that clear on what the purpose of a heritage statement, obviously something to do with heritage. Thing is I fancy my self as a bit of a field archaeologist. That's what I try to base my day rate on. Anybody sent my direction pre application and condition and what I would like to tell the client is how much it would cost to excavate the site and how to go about evaluating that cost. I am quite interested in soil type, depths to natural and types of material that have been found in the vicinity. PPG16 was based on that model. tenders , "inexpensive evaluation". The clears as mud NPPF- lets write ppg16 in a paragraph and bury it in an eia-seems to have just created extra levels of verbiage for the inspectorate business. It would appear that field archaeologists are the least of their concerns. I don't know whether it is good or bad but I have just come across a first example of a small single residence being turned down with the grounds that a Heritage statement was not supplied with the application. What also interesting is that three years ago the other half of the same plot was granted permission with a watching brief condition (came up with 2 residual medieval sherds) where no pre application information had been supplied to the same authorities. NPPF is just a big piss take of the Localism Bill by the public servants.

Sorry where I am trying to go with this is that when local authority archaeologists suggest conditions to the planning authority/committee they don't have to write a desk-based assessment. The authorities condition in effect gets them into the inquiry. What I am feeling is that an equivalent system for the developers pet archaeologist is that they put their recommendation in through the public comments and we don't have to have this useless production of frankly embarrassing heritage receptor rubbish.