2nd June 2006, 02:23 PM
Mole said
'But on areas where all the topsoil is going to be stripped anyway it seems to make sense and these are coming in as initial briefs rather than afterthoughts.'
This may well be the case and there are plenty of sites where complete topsoil stripping is likely to be required as part of the development.
One word of caution however - if the topsoil stripping is done as part of the archaeological works, then the developer is able to include the costs as part of the archaeology costs, i.e going to the LPa and moaning along the lines of 'I've already spent £50K on archaeology, now they want another £50k for more excavation and reporting - I really can't afford this', whereas the truth is that £50K has been spent on stripping and moving topsoil but that would have need to be done anyway and should have been in the groundworks budget, not the archaeology budget.
Just a thought (based on experience).
Beamo
'But on areas where all the topsoil is going to be stripped anyway it seems to make sense and these are coming in as initial briefs rather than afterthoughts.'
This may well be the case and there are plenty of sites where complete topsoil stripping is likely to be required as part of the development.
One word of caution however - if the topsoil stripping is done as part of the archaeological works, then the developer is able to include the costs as part of the archaeology costs, i.e going to the LPa and moaning along the lines of 'I've already spent £50K on archaeology, now they want another £50k for more excavation and reporting - I really can't afford this', whereas the truth is that £50K has been spent on stripping and moving topsoil but that would have need to be done anyway and should have been in the groundworks budget, not the archaeology budget.
Just a thought (based on experience).
Beamo