BAJR follow-up to Petition

[1man1desk]

posted by ecmgardner:

quote:The biggest problem I see is that developers will not pay for archaeology.

They do pay for archaeology, because they have no choice. However, in a market economy, they don't pay any more than they have to to get the work done and either obtain their planning consent or discharge a planning condition. Competitive tendering is therefore a constraint on potential pay increases.
However, going over to a non-market system without competitive tendering is not a realistic solution (and not only because it is not on offer). Public funding would be at the mercy of local/national government spending priorities, and the present situation with the curatorial service in Northamptonshire indicates how far that would get us. Remember, we operated on such a system up to 1990, and there was a lot less money available than has been the case since then. Standards also suffer under such a system, as units with local monopolies have no incentive to improve or change.

quote:I consider that there should be a government responsibility for our heritage and I am sure I am not alone in the occasional feeling that we, as a group, sometimes are the only ones who care about preserving this heritage for posterity and the nation.

If we as a group believe that we are the only ones who care about heritage, then there is no justification for asking either the government (funded by everyone else's taxes) or developers to pay for it.
Personally, though, I think that we (archaeologists) as a group are very far from being the only people to care, so the point doesn't arise.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished