19th July 2011, 12:07 PM
P Prentice Wrote:redearth the threat to proffessional archaeology isnt community excavations it is the withdrawal of funding from her/smr development control. community archaeology is a drop in the ocean but can only serve to get more of the public on our side and hence up in arms when her's are shut down and hence more development work for professionals
I'm not saying that they are a threat to professionals directly, but I think they further confuse people's idea of how the commercial/developer funding system works and a move to draw the two together (as has been mention several times and seems perhaps to be the crux of the Southport group's suggestions) is only going to make that worse. Is the norm soon going to be a 'commercial' site with one or two professionals overseeing a group of HLF trained volunteers or a return to the glory days of MSC schemes? Some on this forum would perhaps think that a good thing!
Closure or withdrawl of funding from HERs is another issue, seeminly a 'Councillor Melton' act by the back door i.e. rather than announce an intension to remove the condition for archaeological work from planning applications simply close the HER/HES so it can't be carried out properly anyway, which is presumably also illegal under EU and UK planning law, but I'm no expert. I thought the situation in Merseyside had been at least partially reversed, perhaps because they realised it left them with certain legal difficulties? Does anyone know how many of the people taking part in community projects would complain about the HER/HES being closed? Does anyone know how many of them know what the HER/HES is or what it does? One might say that if they wanted to be more involved in 'rescue' work like in the good old days they might actively pray for the demise of such organisations so that they can, but that is just being paranoid.
If you or anyone else reading this is or has been involved in a community project and your local HER/HES is threatened perhaps try drumming up support from the volunteers to see what response you get.
Oh, and as several others have pointed out, if there is such a shortage and a skills gap developing why are so many very experienced people (10 years plus, and all sorts of skills and levels of employment) being made redundant or leaving archaeology? It sounds like there should be plenty of work for them! These a whole herd of elephants in this (very big) room but the answer being provided isn't 'we must do something to help retain these trained professionals', its 'don't worry the archaeology will be perfectly safe, there are plenty of volunteers about'. Fuck the professionals eh?