21st May 2010, 12:48 PM
Sith Wrote:Surely it should be necessary for the applicant, consultant or whoever, to propose exactly how their mitigation will acheive preservation in situ, in consultation with the Curator. That way there should be no nasty surprises.
The nasty surprises come when, having built the house within the carefully archaeologically excavated footings, the new owner then digs out all the remaining 'archaeology in situ' to plant the garden full of trees, shrubs, dead pets etc, for which he requires no planning permission at all!
By the way, presumably within the growth industry of Japanese Knotweed Eradication (which involves removing the top 2 metres of soil/archaeological deposits, riddling it to fish out any bits of roots, then dumping it back in randomised order) there are no archaeological constraints? - this type of unrestricted activity probably poses one of the greatest threats to Britain's below-ground heritage? Is there even any central record of what locations this appalling vandalism has occurred in? :0