Bad day at the office?!

[Marcus Brody]

Much as I really don't want to become entangled in another tedious Unitof1-dominated thread about why every other archaeologist in the country is wrong, I was under the impression from most of his previous posts that he was very much in favour of pre-determination evaluation - I'm sure I remember posts to the effect that every planning application should be accompanied by the results of evaluation, undertaken by an archaeologist in the pay of the developer. I'm also sure I remember Unit saying that if this were done, there'd be no need for Councils to employ their own archaeologists, as obviously they could take on trust reports supplied by the company paid for by the developer, without needing to check them themselves. I realise that arguing with Unit is like trying to herd cats, but I sometimes wonder exactly what it would take to make him happy.

The point of undertaking evaluation prior to determination is to allow the Council to retain the option of refusing planning consent, should trenching indicate the survival of significant archaeology on the site. This is why developers don't like doing it, as it means they have to spend money on trenching before they have consent, and indeed, run the risk that the results of this trenching may actually prevent consent being granted. Most would rather push for the work to be done under a condition, as that gives them a greater degree of certainty that the development will go ahead and allows them to borrow money against the increased value of land with planning consent, in the knowledge that once consent has been granted, it's very unlikely to be revoked as a result of post-determination evaluation (and that if it was, compensation would be payable).

Now I'm off to order one of those Bartiscanster Archaeology Detectors.