28th August 2013, 01:57 PM
I'm not getting it. Sure, negative results make future Conditions a hard sell, but simply not bothering can't be the answer. Somebody needs to assess the likelihood of archaeology, and if the area has enough evals to be happy without a condition then the developer needs to know the risk being taken, and I'd expect a watcing brief as a condition that could easily trigger a work stoppage and rescue dig.
I appreciate that there can be trends, but they are always just educated guesses. Even the best "negative" eval can only confirm that there was nothing within the footprint of the eval trenches - the surrounding field can still be hoaching with features.
What you need is creative selling. After all, the other construction-related surveys of the site (contamination, bats, etc) don't get dropped from the running just because other properties in the area had negative results! But if you really think that cutting back on Conditions is the way to go, please do explain how it would work.
I appreciate that there can be trends, but they are always just educated guesses. Even the best "negative" eval can only confirm that there was nothing within the footprint of the eval trenches - the surrounding field can still be hoaching with features.
What you need is creative selling. After all, the other construction-related surveys of the site (contamination, bats, etc) don't get dropped from the running just because other properties in the area had negative results! But if you really think that cutting back on Conditions is the way to go, please do explain how it would work.