Thanks for the many positive comments about volunteers. Peter has raised an interesting issue when saying:
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OK lets look at one point confidentiality. Big nasty developers want to demolish factory which is still in use but the workers havent been told this yet or what it will mean. This factory has to be recorded as part of the conservation statement who would you choose?
a. highly respected consultant with confidentiality systems in place from the other end of the country.
b. the local history society and volunteers
c. the local archaeological unit with volunteers
d the local archaeology unit without volunteers.
In my experience this process would normally broken down into (at least) two stages. The first stage, which takes place whilst the factory is still in operation, is gathering the necessary information to make an informed planning decision. This might require some 'recording' but will normally involve more of an assessment level study of the building(s) to determine their significance and worthiness of protection / further recording. This might well be done by either "a" or "d" in Peter's list of choices. I would prefer to see it being done by "d" as they might have extra local knowledge than "a" coming from "the other end of the country" - but really there [u]should</u> be no difference in quality.
The conservation statement which results from this assessment might then recommend further recording in various forms prior to redevelopment. This could well involve a combination of standing building recording, below-ground archaeology and oral history. This would take place after closure of the factory and prior to (and during) redevelopment. This should certainly be undertaken by "d", and it would be in everyone's best interests if "c" and "b" were also involved - ie. the local archaeological unit working closely with the local history society and perhaps a handful of the local history people getting closely involved with some of the building recording and oral history.
We have just finished a project which has done all of this and more, but unfortunately I am bound by confidentiality (!) until the Planning Permission is signed off, so cannot mention it by name!
To answer Gary's points...
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Its been stated that the biggest threat to finite resource is large housing development and that archaeology has become commercial to deal with the large amounts of land that is being developed and that archaeology is having problems justifying itself commercially.
Are sacrifices made to the heritage so others can get the contract?
Who polices this?
Should archaeologist be made accountable for their fees and what they do with the public money. Do the public have a right to ask what is being done in the name of heritage?
There are a lot of points there and I am sure others can answer them better than I can - however since I started this thread I guess I have some responsibility!
I don't think commercial archaeology has a problem justifying itself. Most developers now acknowledge that dealing with the historic environment is just as important as natural environment issues. Consultants are essentially 'risk managers' who try and limit their client's exposure to costs. In that sense there will always be a compromise between what the archaeologists want to do and what it is possible to do - but that is always the case in all environment-related disciplines. The system is policed by local planning authorities (ie. the overworked curatorial archaeologists). These curatorial archaeologists are publicly funded - ie. they are public servants of the relevant local authority and you should be able to find out how much your county/borough spends on its own service (pitifully little, you will find).
Yes the public have the right to know what is being done with their heritage, and the person to ask is your local curatorial archaeologist. If you are concerned you can raise the issue with your local politicians (councillors), who can put pressure on senior officers in the relevant local authority directorate, who might increase the resource available to the curatorial archaeologist. That's democracy!
On the other hand commercial archaeological fees are entirely the business of commercial archaeological units and consultants. Most of the time it is [u]not</u> public money, but private money (developer funding) which supports archaeology (for instance in the case of house building). It is entirely up to the developer if he wishes to make public how much he has spent on archaeology. This system has been with us since 1990.
For publicly-funded projects, however, we have every right to know how much was spent, and this is usually to be found in the small print of the EH annual review. Some archaeological units are charitable trusts, and their accounts are inspectable via the Charities Commission.
PS. Peter as I understand it 'gas-free certification' usually requires compliance (ie. removal) within 24 hours. However I would not expect to involve volunteers in the decommissioning of oil storage installations!
Edited to explain more clearly the funding for curators.
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