Is there a North-South divide?

[Cautionary Tale]

What are these 'facts' you speak of. They have no place in archaeology I always measure the 'possibly' factor of my reports before they get sent. Any fewer than one a paragraph and I haven't done my job properly

I would add myself to the HS fan club too. Information has never been so accessable, which should feed back into research frameworks. I would have to say that the enthusiasm of the DC does influence things: without mentioning names for fear of seeming sycophantic, a certain DC I used to deal with managed to find funds for research projects (whether big or small wasn't really the point, it just kept research going), and judging by recent conversations they still do (even though they've moved up the country a bit).

[Hugh]

quote:Originally posted by Sith

Any chance of further and better particulars about which bit of "the North" you're talking about? (obviously not the actual place or curator involved - AUP and all that).

I have to say that this doesn't really fit my own experience of working up country, where we usually involve EH and the DC archaeologists from the outset.

Afraid not, it might make things a bit too obvious. The reaction of that particular DC officer to developments is always in proportion to the archaeology, and he never misses a thing. There can be problems however with the planning officers releasing the conditions before everything is sorted
A lot of good work is done in the area and the curators have a good relationship with EH and, as far as I can tell, the contractors.
The planning officers might be more interested if the archaeology was as "interesting" as it can be in the South, but it isn't and the DC work is differant in proportion to that.

Doesn't ring a bell :?

[Sith]

quote:Originally posted by HughThe planning officers might be more interested if the archaeology was as "interesting" as it can be in the South, but it isn't and the DC work is differant in proportion to that.

Eh? Maybe someone needs to educate planners about the need to assess just how interesting the archaeology is before they allow a developer erase it for good! Am I mis reading this or are you actually acquiessing to the view that the archaseology in the North isn't as interesting as that in the south?

Most sites aren't Stonehenge so maybe we should just bulldoze all the stuff that that isn't scheduled and save the planners from having to think too hard and ourselves the worry.

D. Vader
Senior Consultant

Vader Maull & Palpatine
Archaeological Consultants

Not just there for the rotten things in life like a blocked wormhole

[Curator Kid]

These are the sort of things I was thinking of when I started this thread. Surely it's got nothing to do with how "interesting" the archaeology is? (Funnily enough, I've always been rather jealous of northern archaeology - we have no Vikings at all where I work, and the Romans didn't really bother much either...). We all use exactly the same set of Government Guidance documents, English Heritage papers, etc. as everyone else in the country to base our policies on - yet protection/mitigation regimes vary, and appear (from what I hear) to be more robust towards the south, where we seem to have an easier time getting our point of view across to the planning officers (not the Planning Inspectors though - now there is a rant all of it's own...). Is it a matter of being more vociferous about the value of the resource? Are we fighting a battle against the tide of development in certain areas? Maybe we need to fight our corner better... but how? And in what arena?

[achingknees]

Just a thought. Could some of the differences in implementation (if they exist) be related to differential regional development? When PPG16 came in there was a development boom in the south. Indeed the polluter pays principle was already being used in some areas e.g. London in the 1980s. Other areas have only seen an increase in regeneration in more recent times.

[Cautionary Tale]

CK - i'll publicise my idea for a head banging session with ALGAO, ODPM, EH, CBA and IFA. This group should be their own arena, after all if something is agreed between these groups then all archaeology will be done that way.
EH already go some way to establishing standards (eg: MAP2 is pretty much universal, even if the follow-up is exactly perfect - I'm choosing my words carefullyB))why not expand it, if this was linked up with PS (whatever number) it would effectively be binding for development work. Level playing field ahoy. Would this not be good?

[Hugh]

quote:Eh? Maybe someone needs to educate planners about the need to assess just how interesting the archaeology is before they allow a developer erase it for good! Am I mis reading this or are you actually acquiessing to the view that the archaseology in the North isn't as interesting as that in the south?

Most sites aren't Stonehenge so maybe we should just bulldoze all the stuff that that isn't scheduled and save the planners from having to think too hard and ourselves the worry.

[u]I </u> don't think it's less interesting, it's just that in some Northern counties the population appears to have been much less nucleated and dense as in the South, so a dig in the centre of a medieval town is often likely to come up with little more than a couple of shallow pits, and if your lucky the edges of the burgage plot. With the high turnover of planners it can be a struggle to keep the planners aware that pits and gullies can actually be interesting. It really shouldn't be a struggle to get conditions applied when archaeology is in the local plan, but it occasionally is.
Anyway it can't be all that bad otherwise we'd constantly be hearing about sites getting trashed, rather than one or two isolated examples.
PPG 16 does work in the North, just slightly differantly than in the South, as you would expect considering the areas have different archaeological remains.

Doesn't ring a bell :?

[troll]

Can someone tell me who polices planning authorities?

[Cautionary Tale]

As I'm sure any curators will tell you at length with tears in their eyes, its normally Planning Inspectors (who are want to take a dim view of archaeology judging by previous posts).

[troll]

Perhaps its about time then that said inspectors should be policed by tax-paying citizens via some well-aimed media attention...the term
"civil servant" is fairly self explanatory really......