22nd August 2010, 09:00 AM
Hi everyone
This may need to be started on a new thread but is relevant to the general thrust of discussion here... there are many uses of HER data other than just public information and informing DBAs for planning. One of the main ones in rural areas (such as the Yorkshire Wolds) is to inform the production of base maps for agri-environment schemes. And one of the conditions of entry by farmers into the current agri-environment schemes in England, Environmental Stewardship, is that they do not permit metal detecting on their land. If they are found to be permitting detecting they are in breach of a legal agreement and funding will be reclaimed from them. While this is a voluntary scheme and farmers are not required to enter it can often be lucrative for them in terms of farm maintainance payments etc and so there is fairly high coverage of rural archaeological sites. Natural England (who administer the schemes on behalf of Defra) have in-house archaeologists of advise on archaeology/farming issues to help further protect these sites and assign funds to undertake (sensitive) projects to improve their condition. NE works closely with EH on improving the condition of monuments @ risk. Without the baseline data from HERs they can do nothing however. So adding sites to the HER can lead to the protection of 'treasure' and archaeological sites in a far more direct way than most people might think.
While nighthawks can then persist when permission is not granted by the landowner at this stage the police are able to get involved and it is a matter for the law.
p.s. as an aside (not relevant to this thread) I ought to add that after the recent cuts NE are due to lose 1/3rd of their staff and as most of the archaeological community isn't aware of the vast amounts of money they pour into archaeology the in-house archaeologists are looking like an easy target - some regions are down to one staff member to cover 6 counties already.
This may need to be started on a new thread but is relevant to the general thrust of discussion here... there are many uses of HER data other than just public information and informing DBAs for planning. One of the main ones in rural areas (such as the Yorkshire Wolds) is to inform the production of base maps for agri-environment schemes. And one of the conditions of entry by farmers into the current agri-environment schemes in England, Environmental Stewardship, is that they do not permit metal detecting on their land. If they are found to be permitting detecting they are in breach of a legal agreement and funding will be reclaimed from them. While this is a voluntary scheme and farmers are not required to enter it can often be lucrative for them in terms of farm maintainance payments etc and so there is fairly high coverage of rural archaeological sites. Natural England (who administer the schemes on behalf of Defra) have in-house archaeologists of advise on archaeology/farming issues to help further protect these sites and assign funds to undertake (sensitive) projects to improve their condition. NE works closely with EH on improving the condition of monuments @ risk. Without the baseline data from HERs they can do nothing however. So adding sites to the HER can lead to the protection of 'treasure' and archaeological sites in a far more direct way than most people might think.
While nighthawks can then persist when permission is not granted by the landowner at this stage the police are able to get involved and it is a matter for the law.
p.s. as an aside (not relevant to this thread) I ought to add that after the recent cuts NE are due to lose 1/3rd of their staff and as most of the archaeological community isn't aware of the vast amounts of money they pour into archaeology the in-house archaeologists are looking like an easy target - some regions are down to one staff member to cover 6 counties already.
one girl went to dig, went to dig a meadow...