HS2 high-speed - archaeologists jamboree?

[GnomeKing]

Or an opportunity to destroy a vast swathe of that troublesome archaeology............depends on the mitigation strategy and/or expertese of those doing the consultancy and/or fieldwork...............

Beware of strategies like oh if nothing shows up in the DBA or geophysics there's nothing there...............or the we'll strip a 5m wide corridor, if there is nothing in there then there'll be nowt in the rest of the corridor!
These things destroy archaeology as a necessity, it is impractical and prohibitively to strip map and record the full impact footprint.

too damn right Jk - (Wax too! - as always)

also : do we need a reminder of what the (only?) study of the effectivness of commercial Evaluation Trench Survey actually said c. 20 years ago ? (tip 1: preshistoric archaeology is vastly under-predicted)


"one huge swath..." ... "meticulus study like never before " - can say that again !- very effing much LOL - recent expeirence (over the last 5 years or so) suggests a rather different prospect


But really, never mind the archaeology - it can, as always, wait....do we seriously think HS2 is a good idea?
some people seem to have sucked up all the lobbying and propaganda like mana from the ConDem teat (at least we drop that word next year..

HS2 will not deliver what is promised and is vastly overpriced -
who really benifits ?
more importantly: WHAT ELSE COULD BE DONE WITH THE MONEY INSTEAD ?

here is one view;
shouty? - yes, wackjob? - maybe..., but i tend to agree:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIEdYl2wfUQ