17th September 2011, 12:58 PM
Drunky Wrote:which kinda suggests that the planning permission was made before any evaluation.....
of course a local unit is more likely to get a jobs in there local area its not down to money grabbing conspiracy it probably down to them having local staff and resources so they don't have to pay for accommodation and travel, and whole range of other other thing which can make there quote cheaper. Strangely i've never worked of a Welsh based unit in London or Scotland
Is intrusive evaluation actually required before making a planning decision? I've worked on plenty of jobs over the years which hadn't been trial trenched (and plenty more where the trial trenches had given completely unhelpful results or destroyed all the important relationships, but that's another story....)
Some large development companies these days have stuff in their environmental policies about using local subcontractors wherever possible to reduce carbon-footprints etc.
Although based in NE England, the crew I work for have occasionally been known to do jobs as far north as the Orkneys, as far south as Somerset, East Anglia, yes Wales, wherever - but the logistics and costs do tend to go through the roof, and there are 'hidden' things like a manager having to go out to deal with stuff suddenly becomes a 2 day exercise with overnight stays and travel costs rather than just getting up early, do the meeting and back in the office by lunchtime to deal with other stuff. And shifting a few hundred soil samples suddenly becomes a major issue.....
And a lot of developers do value 'local knowledge', as do many consultants who I'm sure are quite good at 'guiding' their clients through the process of putting out tenders for archaeological fieldwork. Plus some developers (doubtless advised by their consultants) are savvy enough to realise that curators will give them a smoother ride if they think the work is being done by what they consider to be a 'safe pair of hands' whose work they know. And at a fieldwork level things tend to go much more smoothly if the archaeologist(s) on site can have a crack-on with the construction guys, know the same pubs/football teams/whatever - maintaining a good relationship like that increases the chances of being remembered the next time a job comes up