12th October 2005, 06:56 PM
In my experience yes there is a divide.
I know of one example where in a Northern county the DC officer only put a short watching brief on a development in the centre of a small medieval town. A while later he got a call from the new English heritage officer for the region saying how disappointed he was that he hadn't asked for pre-determination evaluation. The DC officer replied with a: there wont be anything there and b: the planning officers wont put on evaluations unless you can REALLY justify it.
Anyway the new EH bloke wrote to the Borough planning officers asking to meet them to discuss the matter to which they replied "We don't see any benefit in having a meeting with a minor central government bureaucrat".
Basically it goes like this. The archaeology in the North is generally less complex (a good assemblage of medieval pot sherds from an excavation in some counties is a dozen) and the planning officers hate anything that gets in the way of "regeneration" so justifying the planning conditions can be extremely difficult.
Doesn't ring a bell :?
I know of one example where in a Northern county the DC officer only put a short watching brief on a development in the centre of a small medieval town. A while later he got a call from the new English heritage officer for the region saying how disappointed he was that he hadn't asked for pre-determination evaluation. The DC officer replied with a: there wont be anything there and b: the planning officers wont put on evaluations unless you can REALLY justify it.
Anyway the new EH bloke wrote to the Borough planning officers asking to meet them to discuss the matter to which they replied "We don't see any benefit in having a meeting with a minor central government bureaucrat".
Basically it goes like this. The archaeology in the North is generally less complex (a good assemblage of medieval pot sherds from an excavation in some counties is a dozen) and the planning officers hate anything that gets in the way of "regeneration" so justifying the planning conditions can be extremely difficult.
Doesn't ring a bell :?