27th May 2011, 11:35 AM
P Prentice Wrote:what you may be seeing is a mountie recommending predetermination evaluatiom and being ignored or a f***up between planners and the stubborn insistance on eval anyway - happens all the time. you've probably digested more of pps5 than most planners anyway
This certainly happens. Up here, most Councils now have online planning systems where all documentation relating to an application can be viewed online, and I imagine it's the same in England. I've found that in most cases that I've looked at, the Council archaeologist will have advised pre-determination evaluation as the preferred course, possibly saying that evaluation under a condition would be a less-acceptable alternative, but the planner decides to use the condition. When I asked a curator why they included the option of a condition when they would prefer pre-determination, I was told (off the record) that if a condition was not included and pre-determination evaluation is given as the only option, a lot of planners will simply grant the consent without any archaeological work taking place. You can argue that the curator should stick to his-or-her guns, and insist on pre-determination evaluation, but ultimately it's the planner that makes the decision, and apparently a large proportion of them prefer a simple condition to an arguement with a developer about why they should spend money undertaking work which might result in their not obtaining planning consent.
I feel this post may fall foul of RedEarth's proscription on preteniousness (and if it didn't before, that last sentance will have surely pushed it over the edge!)
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum