18th April 2011, 08:36 AM
I think people here have hit on the reality of the situation, most commercial sites are going to be regulated by the structures within the construction industry, CDMS, CSCS, insurance and health and safety. All of which will exclude those who are not professionals. This does not mean that an element of public facing work cannot be built in in the form of interpretation and open days.
However if the public archaeology is built in at an early enough stage before the site is classed as a construction site then many of the various regs would not apply. This may be where PPS5 comes in
The reality is that proper public archaeology costs a damn site more than commercial archaeology and within current economic constraints I only ever see it happening under HLF type funded projects so I wouldnt worry too much about volunteers taking over our jobs ( that being said there are many amatuers who think they can do the job as well as us and should be allowed to, I just ask them to do a risk assesment for a project,
)
However if the public archaeology is built in at an early enough stage before the site is classed as a construction site then many of the various regs would not apply. This may be where PPS5 comes in
The reality is that proper public archaeology costs a damn site more than commercial archaeology and within current economic constraints I only ever see it happening under HLF type funded projects so I wouldnt worry too much about volunteers taking over our jobs ( that being said there are many amatuers who think they can do the job as well as us and should be allowed to, I just ask them to do a risk assesment for a project,
)