1st February 2007, 11:56 AM
"perversity lies where subsidy is suggesting that landowners are protecting archaeology when we do not know if it is there. "
Landownerts only get payments on land where there is known to be archaeology (or where there is ggood evidence such as cropmarks for archaeological remains having existed in the recent past).
"I think that anywhere a landowner (and the government as their backers) applies for funding to take a field out of farming, on the grounds that they are protecting archaeology, that evaluation trenches are undertaken to prove the extents of the archaeological potential."
I and my colleagues have discussed this as a principle - I am not sure if our political masters would be able to get their heads around the concept, even though its a damn good one - if we are going to pay the thick end of half a million quid over ten years we should be sure that its value for money
"I think that if the cosmic survey has shown that even scheduled monuments have disappeared in the last ten years that any other nmp crop marks are more than likely to have gone. I call on the RDS or any other agency of pension grabbers to come out with where and what they are paying for âarchaeologyâ to be protected so that we can mull over what we are getting for our buck (I suggest that it will be pathetic amount which allows them claim to use the word archaeology)."
Ask the local Natural England office for the information (RDS is no longer in existance having been absorbed into Natural England). I actually object strongly to your description - why should I not get a pension when I have payed into a pension scheme for as long as one has been available (like not for the first ten years of my career when I was digging).
And then archaeologist want some (more than half) of that buck to undertake the evaluations (trench)- oh and yearly checks on the status. And it should be done by independent self-employed people (no chance that they will be IFA members then) who will offer the cheapest price and not by some conflict of interest pension grabbers.
You have a weird view of the way that contracts are awarded. if the scheme for evaluations was put in place then the work would be tendered for by commercial organisations, in the same way that structural engineering work, buildings survey and building works are put out to tender. Costs of removing land from cultivation £460/ha/year- can anyone tell me the current costs of carrying out an evaluation per ha. Once its out of cultivation why do you need an annual check apart from to employ diggers?
Then when they get a âgrantâ it has to be for some 99 year lease type thing and they have to give the deeds to the land to the first immigrant that they meet so that it can be seen that all this preservation of our traditional and vernacular is not reactionary politics at work which is what anything building restoration, -churches-, and âlandscapeâ orientated is.
I have long thought that the best way of protecting significant areas of ecological interesst would be to spend the money actually buying them and then letting the land with management conditions. However as I am not the Secretary of State for anything, let alone a department with some interest inthe environment its not likely to happen. Try writing to the Sec of State for Defra (Milliband) or DCMS (Jowell) and let us know what the response is to this sensible suggestion.
Landownerts only get payments on land where there is known to be archaeology (or where there is ggood evidence such as cropmarks for archaeological remains having existed in the recent past).
"I think that anywhere a landowner (and the government as their backers) applies for funding to take a field out of farming, on the grounds that they are protecting archaeology, that evaluation trenches are undertaken to prove the extents of the archaeological potential."
I and my colleagues have discussed this as a principle - I am not sure if our political masters would be able to get their heads around the concept, even though its a damn good one - if we are going to pay the thick end of half a million quid over ten years we should be sure that its value for money
"I think that if the cosmic survey has shown that even scheduled monuments have disappeared in the last ten years that any other nmp crop marks are more than likely to have gone. I call on the RDS or any other agency of pension grabbers to come out with where and what they are paying for âarchaeologyâ to be protected so that we can mull over what we are getting for our buck (I suggest that it will be pathetic amount which allows them claim to use the word archaeology)."
Ask the local Natural England office for the information (RDS is no longer in existance having been absorbed into Natural England). I actually object strongly to your description - why should I not get a pension when I have payed into a pension scheme for as long as one has been available (like not for the first ten years of my career when I was digging).
And then archaeologist want some (more than half) of that buck to undertake the evaluations (trench)- oh and yearly checks on the status. And it should be done by independent self-employed people (no chance that they will be IFA members then) who will offer the cheapest price and not by some conflict of interest pension grabbers.
You have a weird view of the way that contracts are awarded. if the scheme for evaluations was put in place then the work would be tendered for by commercial organisations, in the same way that structural engineering work, buildings survey and building works are put out to tender. Costs of removing land from cultivation £460/ha/year- can anyone tell me the current costs of carrying out an evaluation per ha. Once its out of cultivation why do you need an annual check apart from to employ diggers?
Then when they get a âgrantâ it has to be for some 99 year lease type thing and they have to give the deeds to the land to the first immigrant that they meet so that it can be seen that all this preservation of our traditional and vernacular is not reactionary politics at work which is what anything building restoration, -churches-, and âlandscapeâ orientated is.
I have long thought that the best way of protecting significant areas of ecological interesst would be to spend the money actually buying them and then letting the land with management conditions. However as I am not the Secretary of State for anything, let alone a department with some interest inthe environment its not likely to happen. Try writing to the Sec of State for Defra (Milliband) or DCMS (Jowell) and let us know what the response is to this sensible suggestion.