24th February 2006, 12:57 AM
A hypothetical scenario....
A developer wants to build a new shiny complex on ground within a city centre.As the city curator-I happen to know that deeply stratified medieval buildings survive below ground on a certain street frontage.There is a good chance that Roman remains lay beneath them too. Rather than insisting that full excavation of the actual street frontage be undertaken-how about if I only insist upon the excavation of the medieval back yards and allow the developer to machine out the med buildings that survive on the street frontage? Is this a viable compromise?
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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24th February 2006, 09:16 AM
No!
I had a similar scenario a couple of years ago - redevelopment of a shop fronting onto the medieval High Street, nicely preserved Medieval deposits at the front, with backyard activity to look at towards the rear. The developer visibly blanched at paying for weeks of archaeology (and months of post-ex probably) at the front of the site, but the deposits in the back yard were much simpler and therefore quicker to look at. In this case, as with any other, the "viable compromise" is preservation - the developer redesigned his foundations and raised his floor slab at the front of the site by 20cm. The archaeology is still there.
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24th February 2006, 11:41 AM
I agree, it is a terrible compromise. I do many evals in just such sites and I'm always working in the open backyard areas, never the street frontages. Strangely, despite revealing complex strat even in the backyards, they don't go to excavation prior to the street front being developed. Are the designs always sympathetic to surviving strat at the front of the site? I doubt it because we weren't able to evaluate survival in that part. One particular case that i have ranted about on the forum had me evaluate the backyard area and then proceeded to build a structure 3 times the stated size closer to the street, without even a WB! Grrrr!
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24th February 2006, 12:13 PM
Hi Merc
I obviously wouldn't know, but it sounds as though in your example they did the archaeology bit for one planning permission, but actually implemented another scheme. The planners probably assumed that the archaeology was done and dusted, having recieved a report or agreed a preservation strategy.
I think this sort of thing happens more often than we might think, and it's tricky to track. You could of course try to get the whole site dug at the outset arguing that construction impacts are always greater than anticipated - for example if they decide to switch pile types to vibrocompacted ones or re-route services instead of using old runs - but wou would probably hit a brick wall in terms of reasonableness. But in essence the archaeology agreed for one planning permission will not necessarily be automatically transfered to a different scheme, if the 1st one is not implemented.
Anyway, it's Friday and I'm going to go and prepare myself for the curling - I hope you are too!
!
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24th February 2006, 12:18 PM
Yep, shame about the hockey though.
By the way, that was pretty much my assessment of the site, until I realized that it was a Council development. A different kettle of fish entirely!
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24th February 2006, 12:21 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by mercenary
Yep, shame about the hockey though.
By the way, that was pretty much my assessment of the site, until I realized that it was a Council development. A different kettle of fish entirely!
Ah - Council development. Well that sums it up!
I know, gutted over the hockey. Bring on Vancouver 2010!
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24th February 2006, 05:53 PM
I visited Wales for a music festival two years ago, and was told of a medieval town with possible Roman foundations, buried under twenty or so feet of sand there.
The town was abandoned in the 15th Century just as things were starting to take off over here in the US of A.
It appears that over there someone can say 'that's of huge interest' and then simply ignore it. Is this the case ?
The town concerned was at Kenfig, near Bridgend in south Wales and I would be very interested to know if any of your members have heard of it.
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24th February 2006, 10:53 PM
Yes Madoc, this is very much the case, there was some sort of shift in the prevailing wind that lifted the sand off the beach and dumped it fairly quickly over the whole area, this site at kenfig is not the only one either. /you should possibly speak to Dr Jon Kissock at the University of Wales Newport, he is the man to speak to about anything on the gower peninsula. I also suspect that one of the reasons that nothing of any real note has been done there is because the site lies in an army firing range. Mod do not always allow access to their sites!
Good Luck!!
deep
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25th February 2006, 12:04 AM
Thought so.A confession....was`nt hypothetical at all.A certain curator seems to have come up with this little gem of a wheeze.What redress do we have as tax-payers? How do we make noise about this effectively? Please don`t tell me to report him to the IFA
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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25th February 2006, 12:50 PM
Once again, who watches the watchers?
