Research be seen as integral to development excavation.

[nick the fifer]

The key change in PPS 5 is that the mitigation is not just recording and it in many respects never has been.

A developer is mitigating damage and if siomething is not been damaged then it does get looked at simple. Both PPS 5 and PPG 16 regard preservation as the best option. As excavation is destructive the notion that a bigger area should be examined is a none starter.

Peter

It seems clear to me (provided one can decode official policy speak) that where HE12.1 says "record and advance understanding" the latter is intended to be research as discussed here.

I am not clear, however that "examining a larger area" is so much of a non-starter when one considers that that HE12.3 states "loss of the whole or a material part of a heritage asset’s significance". This would depend on how a planning authority might interpret "examine" - i.e. not simply excavation - and "significance", which DCMS and EH at least assume could mean development in the setting of a heritage assets where the asset itself is not necessarily damaged or destroyed.

Of course, the underpinning principle is "proportionality" (but again that is a rather flexible concept). What might be "proportionate" for a developer - e.g. the minimum review of HER and a "desk-based evaluation" as in HE6.1 - may not be "proportionate" for a planning authority.