Nearly ?3m of taxpayers cash spent on Anglesey archaeological dig

[Marcus Brody]

Good post, Drunky. I know nothing about the specifics of the site, but my first impression on reading the story was that there would probably have been several points at which the project could have been halted if the developer (who I presume was the Welsh government) had felt that the archaeological costs were too great, the most obvious being following initial evaluation. The story is presented as if the evil archaeologists simply ploughed on spending taxpayer money, and presented a huge bill at the end, without telling anyone at any point prior to this what the cost was likely to be, and before anyone had the opportunity to stop them. In practise, the evaluation results should have given an indication of the quality of material present, and how extensive it was, which would in turn allow some indication of the likely cost of dealing with it. At that point, the developer would have the opportunity of to look at the likely archaeology costs, and could decide to walk away from the site if they felt that these were too high (which would also have preserved the material). Instead, they decided to press ahead with the development. It's also likely that the contractor would have had to submit regular invoices and keep the developer up to date on any projected charges to the cost, so the final bill shouldn't really have come as a surprise.

The whole thing smacks of an attempt to save face for a cock-up in building an industrial park that nobody wants by using archaeology as a convenient scapegoat.