20th July 2011, 01:00 PM
In responding to Unitof1, I've chosen to ignore all his 'hilarious' anti-Scottish references - after all, not everyone can be lucky enough to live in God's Own Country (with apologies to people from Yorkshire, who I know use the same term to describe their own patch!)
That's what I meant, I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. The work is done pre-application, the report is submitted in support of the application, the report is available as part of the planning application. The point I was making is that planning applications are already open to public scrutiny, and frequently contain reports on various aspects, sometimes including archaeology, but these are very rarely consulted by either professional archaeologists or the public in general, except in the situation where someone objects to a neighbour's extension or something. It's therefore naive to suggest that pre-application archaeological information would be checked any more rigorously by this mythical army of other professional contractors or members of the public you seem to believe is out there. In practise, most reports would slip through the system entirely unchecked.
Nothing like going into the field fully-prepared, is there?
But you said previously in the thread that 'Other commercial archaeologists (more reputable), have the opportunity to object to the proposed mitigation as does the public on “archaeological” grounds'. How will they do this if they don't actually check them - or are you suggesting that only a tiny proportion of the hundreds of thousands of reports will ever actually be looked at by another archaeologist. Seems like a system guaranteed to encourage developers to submit any old nonsense, on the basis that it's statistically unlikely that any other commercial archaeologist or member of the public will actually look at it.
Pot? Kettle? I'll hold my hands up to rambling, but only if you do too!
Unitof1 Wrote:Most pre planning application archaeological information is mostly not in the public domain and nor should it be. It should come into the public domain when the application is made, that is when I the public would like to see it. I the public should like to consider the information, comment on it and my comments be relayed to the people who approve or not planning applications under TCPA.
That's what I meant, I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. The work is done pre-application, the report is submitted in support of the application, the report is available as part of the planning application. The point I was making is that planning applications are already open to public scrutiny, and frequently contain reports on various aspects, sometimes including archaeology, but these are very rarely consulted by either professional archaeologists or the public in general, except in the situation where someone objects to a neighbour's extension or something. It's therefore naive to suggest that pre-application archaeological information would be checked any more rigorously by this mythical army of other professional contractors or members of the public you seem to believe is out there. In practise, most reports would slip through the system entirely unchecked.
Unitof1 Wrote:I never read other peoples reports unless they are germane and easily available for an area in which I have a client.
Nothing like going into the field fully-prepared, is there?
Unitof1 Wrote:I don’t ever intend to monitor reports.
But you said previously in the thread that 'Other commercial archaeologists (more reputable), have the opportunity to object to the proposed mitigation as does the public on “archaeological” grounds'. How will they do this if they don't actually check them - or are you suggesting that only a tiny proportion of the hundreds of thousands of reports will ever actually be looked at by another archaeologist. Seems like a system guaranteed to encourage developers to submit any old nonsense, on the basis that it's statistically unlikely that any other commercial archaeologist or member of the public will actually look at it.
Unitof1 Wrote:as you have pointed out in your rambblings
Pot? Kettle? I'll hold my hands up to rambling, but only if you do too!
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum