26th October 2017, 12:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 26th October 2017, 12:20 PM by GnomeKing.)
Yes - I completely agreed; this is a major closing down of access to archaeological work, and planning mitigation. THe IFA was already utterly incapable of effective regulation of poor quality work from corporate members whenever it occurred - it will now be even harder to bring complaints against the 'uber'-chartered executives and consultants (and who else but they will get chartered at present?).
The whole thing is frankly a farce and a @#£^ing disgrace, only made less so by comparison to Brexit. This closure of Authority in regard of our shared heritage should be ringing alarm bells right across the Heritage Sector, including in Universities. As it stands effective decision making on major aspects of local and national heritage/development planning will increasingly be made by a tiny number of people, virtually all of whom are not publicly accountable, or even publicly 'visible'.
For those who do care about the corporateization of our heritage, and the take-over of planning decisions by publicly unaccountable bodies, the only possible hope is major mobilization of local and public feeling about heritage and planning in their local areas. Direct pressure must be applied, and applied, and applied again, all over the country....even to the extent putting stretched/under-funded county council systems to breaking point...The often small number of dubiously qualified and unaccountable persons involved in heritage-planning decision making needs to be exposed as a key fact in its own right, and the idea of basic public accountability of planning decisions needs to be very strongly re-asserted; pretty much in every single English County.
The cIFA can not/could never-have-been said to be an independent body in way at all > it will increasingly sit alongside other 'extra-governmental agencies' and 'lobbyists' that the current government would like to deliver all planning and social policy, essentially immune from effective public scrutiny through the current County Council planning system .
The cIFA will (increasingly) directly represent the interests of major archaeological corporations only, rather then the interests of people who want high standards of archaeological work in the UK, and who want proper development-led archaeological mitigation in their local areas.
The whole thing is frankly a farce and a @#£^ing disgrace, only made less so by comparison to Brexit. This closure of Authority in regard of our shared heritage should be ringing alarm bells right across the Heritage Sector, including in Universities. As it stands effective decision making on major aspects of local and national heritage/development planning will increasingly be made by a tiny number of people, virtually all of whom are not publicly accountable, or even publicly 'visible'.
For those who do care about the corporateization of our heritage, and the take-over of planning decisions by publicly unaccountable bodies, the only possible hope is major mobilization of local and public feeling about heritage and planning in their local areas. Direct pressure must be applied, and applied, and applied again, all over the country....even to the extent putting stretched/under-funded county council systems to breaking point...The often small number of dubiously qualified and unaccountable persons involved in heritage-planning decision making needs to be exposed as a key fact in its own right, and the idea of basic public accountability of planning decisions needs to be very strongly re-asserted; pretty much in every single English County.
The cIFA can not/could never-have-been said to be an independent body in way at all > it will increasingly sit alongside other 'extra-governmental agencies' and 'lobbyists' that the current government would like to deliver all planning and social policy, essentially immune from effective public scrutiny through the current County Council planning system .
The cIFA will (increasingly) directly represent the interests of major archaeological corporations only, rather then the interests of people who want high standards of archaeological work in the UK, and who want proper development-led archaeological mitigation in their local areas.