27th February 2006, 05:46 PM
Quote:quote:The WSI would have included a paragraph along the lines of 'the archaeological contractor will endeavour to persuade the landowner to provide written consent for the finds to be deposited along with the rest of the archive'. This is all that can realistically be achieved within the current legal framework - any attempt to use a WSI (and therefore a planning condition ) to get a landowner to sign away legal title to objects as yet unknown is unlikely to stand up to any sort of legal scrutiny.
All I said is that the WSI would have to deal with the disposal of the finds, and that the developer would have to comply with what it said - not that the landowner could be made to sign away his/her rights. This is particularly relevant where the landowner is not the developer (e.g. on highway schemes), and we are dependent on their goodwill to gain access to the land for evaluations etc. prior to the planning application.
However, where the landowner is also the developer (as appears to be the case here), and where they are working under a planning condition after the grant of consent for a commercial, profit-making development, there is no reason why a clause could not be included in the WSI in which they commit themselves to donate any archaeological remains to the recipient museum.
1man1desk
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