Fenland District Council to relax archaeological planning regulations

[Tizzy]

It is clear this man is on a mission. I have been invited to write an article to respond to Cllr. Alan Melton's comments as published online and in the Cambridge Times. It is clear how misleading Cllr. Melton has been in his comments, he is trying to lure people to his point of view by selling the idea that heritage protection coupled with environmental and conservation measures are solely responsible for the financial crisis in the development industry. What he does not say is, that it is these very protection measures which have been highly instrumental in the prevention of the building of wind farms, incinerators, nuclear plants and other regionally unpopular planning proposals that no one wants in their back-yard. Dilute or remove HPR and PPS5 from the planning process and we will see areas which have enjoyed protection being exploited by commercial developers on an industrial scale. Gone will be the ability for concerned local groups to have a voice in the development plans for the area in which they live as people like Cllr. Melton, who has an undeclared commercial interest in seeing protection reforms removed profits from everyone elses misery. So much for democracy! What cost democracy! I actually doubt whether Eric Pickles will be too pleased with all this adverse publicity for the Conservative party, in fact I can see him getting into quite a 'pickle' over it. I for one am going to stir as much adverse publicity as I can! Please join me...........

[Tizzy]

I have already quoted at length on this reply. However, I wonder how pleased council tax payers will be to learn that he is wasting money on commissioning a survey of all archaeological interventions over a period of years. What he is missing is the whole point of why we have heritage protection measures in place, it is to investigate the 'archaeological potential' the fact that at times, maybe many, no big discoveries are made is proof the system works. When the incinerators, waste disposal plants, landfill sites and wind farms start appearing people might wish they still had recall to heritage and environmental measures to help prevent uncontrolled development!

[Winders]

And here was me thinking that it was the big housebuilders running out of credit at the end of 2007 that stopped many large developments on my old patch, not the pre-application archaeological investigations as required by PPG16 (as was) and of course the EIA regs. How wrong I was.

[Sith]

I wonder how pleased council tax payers will be to learn that he is wasting money on commissioning a survey of all archaeological interventions over a period of years.

Well spotted. It sounds like the local government equivalent of the huge amount of money spent by the NHS (among others) answering FoI requests (about things like where the huge amount of money they spend goes).

[BAJR]

Thanks for adding that Sparky - sorry about teh thread loss... - I remeber reading it, and seeing anotehr attack coming. It's not us , says the Con-Dems... its the will of the people. soz and all... says Cameron. but you bunny hu... oh... I mean Heritage Professionals... will have to feck off now. There's a good chap!

[kevin wooldridge]

Gill Chitty's posting of the offical CBA line on this matter to Britarch yesterday suggested that the 'Fenland incident' would certainly be raised in the Lords when it came to discuss the 2nd reading of the Localism Bill later this summer. Presumably along the lines of 'how can we let lunatics like this have any kind of local control over irreplaceable national assetts'.......It may be that right now Mr Pickles is less than impressed by the hoo hah raised by his party colleague from North Cambridgeshire.....

[Unitof1]

http://www.wisbechstandard.co.uk/news/rocketing_archaeological_costs_force_neale_wade_to_axe_some_of_its_25_million_expansion_1_622822

I presume this is the Neale Wade Community College, March that everybodys looking forward to seeing in their local museum. ?100,000 its going to be one hell of a display cabinet.

I think that the councillor leader may have being getting hiss pss6 confused with his ppg16 as this was a ppg16 site
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDMQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fc9b.e2bn.net%2Fe2bn%2Fleas%2Fc99%2Fschools%2Fc9b%2Fweb%2Fpublic%2Fbsf%2Faccounts%2Fwebsite%2Fpages%2Fdocuments%2FPlanning%2520Brief%2520NWCC%25201.0a.pdf&ei=NVIETq3BEYfJhAeZwNDIDQ&usg=AFQjCNHRf-HwASsQw_S080zXqu99FeA-Pg

It seems that the councuiloor wants only to do watching briefs. He probably has got the idea from the Lincolnshire districts that lie north of him who do not have any pss6 stuff for their planning applications and basically do it all post application

I think that the neale wade community collede work was undertaken by an oxford county councils archaeology department but I am not sure. Does anybody know if it was an oxford county councils archaeology department?

[BAJR]

Oxford Archaeology East.


AS some extra background to this... and I have been careful to ensure that there is no libel here:

This is all true, (and thanks to the contact for the info) and perhaps shows just who/what we are dealing with.

Starts

Antagonism between the Tory group and the heritage sector goes back a long way. Cllr Melton's fellow Tory Chatteris councillor is one JR Chambers who just happens to be director of JT Chambers (Developments) who also happened to be the defendants in the case of R v Chambers and others in 1988 for total demolition without consent of two list II cottages. A case of some notoriety due to it being at the time (and still the third largest) ever fine for such an act(?70,000) - in 1989

The fines info is published in Context http://www.ihbc.org.uk/context_archi...establish.html ( 5th one down in Table 2) and in Planning and Environmental law 1989.

Cllr Chambers (now vice chair of the Scrutiny committee) business interests are listed on the FDC website.
http://www.fenland.gov.uk/egenda/main.pl...&keyid=228



Ends


So we do seem to have some interesting connections and webs, which may or may not be joined, but what is clear is that Developers have a real voice within. and have a material gain when it comes to what bunnyfugger Melton is suggesting. as Private Eye would say... Shurely Shome Mishtake

THe reasoning is flawed the language comical, the attitude is flippant or pseudo aggressive... the actions of a lone loose cannon? OR something more concerted? :face-thinks:

One thing that continues to irk me is being called a Bunny Hugger - there is one thing to be insulted... another to be insulted properly. I may as well insult him by calling him a "left wing nutter". What a Pickle!

[Unitof1]

what ever kinda nutter I bests its all a tax farming scam
so how did oxford county councils archaeology department get involved with the 25million pound scheme in some fen miles away from their county council? I think that this Neale Wade Community College ex grammer school but unfortunately now a comprehensive thingy is one of those ?Building schools for the future? by loaning your children?s pension money to the Greeks -does anybody know if it?s PFI-funded scheme? You wonder what the tendering scheme for the job was. Did anybody get an invite to tender?

[Sparky]

Its is indeed a PFI scheme, in partnership with this mob

http://www.equitix.co.uk/edu1.html

PFI schemes are so beset with financial problems that it doesn't surprise me if archaeology is being scapegoated, with malice. The notion is more ideological than practicable that they are made to work regardless of their inherant problems.