19th September 2004, 01:29 PM
I really donot see this as an us and them situation with developers/clients. This attitude misses the whole point of PPG 16.
I am not saying that all developers are nice chaps who think preseving archaeology is wonderful or that paying for an excavation is a good use of their money.
I think I should make it clear that I am not saying a single fixed priced all eventualities contract is a good one but they are fairly common.
One of the biggest problems I have is when I ask for a quote for a defined, simple, job with specified contingencies what I often get is not a quote but a costing or an estimate or similar. This is usually unclear.
Often the people who require budget stability are in fact are charities or not for profit organisations whose projects are grant funded. Usually the grants are fixed so therefore the budgets are fixed. Similarly private individuals are on a budget defined buy a loan from a bank or building society.
I would ask everybody to consider if they would engage a plumber, picked out from yellow pages, and employ them to do a job on their house without a fixed price. To add to the mix somebody from the council can come along and say they want to see double the amount of work done and you have no say in the matter.
To go back to the archaeological sitiuation you are then told nothing was found but a report is still needed to inform what work may be required on others land.
It is wrong for archaeological work to be done for a budget set by somebody who has no idea of what the cost actually are or what might be found if the budget is inadequate to cost the eventualities.
Peter Wardle
I am not saying that all developers are nice chaps who think preseving archaeology is wonderful or that paying for an excavation is a good use of their money.
I think I should make it clear that I am not saying a single fixed priced all eventualities contract is a good one but they are fairly common.
One of the biggest problems I have is when I ask for a quote for a defined, simple, job with specified contingencies what I often get is not a quote but a costing or an estimate or similar. This is usually unclear.
Often the people who require budget stability are in fact are charities or not for profit organisations whose projects are grant funded. Usually the grants are fixed so therefore the budgets are fixed. Similarly private individuals are on a budget defined buy a loan from a bank or building society.
I would ask everybody to consider if they would engage a plumber, picked out from yellow pages, and employ them to do a job on their house without a fixed price. To add to the mix somebody from the council can come along and say they want to see double the amount of work done and you have no say in the matter.
To go back to the archaeological sitiuation you are then told nothing was found but a report is still needed to inform what work may be required on others land.
It is wrong for archaeological work to be done for a budget set by somebody who has no idea of what the cost actually are or what might be found if the budget is inadequate to cost the eventualities.
Peter Wardle