Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2005
Sticks in my throat, but (it had to happen one day)......Unit of One is right!! ...There is nothing to say that archaeology must be regulated by public curators...
I know of at least one county which has outsourced its archaeological functions (including it's curatorial role) to a private company. There is also the example of the majority of London boroughs who collectively defer their archaeological functions to an external body, which happens at present to be English Heritage, but one guesses could be any other other body (private or public) able to undertake the curatorial function.
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2006
pps5 appears to leave the curation to the landowner which was also an aspect in ppg16 but not something that was much appreciated. Basically all planning authorities should get on with putting blanket pre-application requirements on all applications and leaving it to the applicant to submit what they think necessary. That might generate some work for us or it might not. It might make us archaeologists into curators as well. Is that such a bad thing. possibly one of the worst things about commercial archaeology is that we have had almost no curatorial responsibility and have really left the justification of why we were doing what we were to faceless (but I imagine spotty) curators who were mostly instigating obscure local development policies which might have had the word heritage environment in them
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2009
I am sorry for any confusion, I took issue with the suggestion that planning applicants should 'self curate'. I am not suggesting that all curators should be public sector employees, I have met some good ones who are not, but I do fundermentally believe that curators should serve the 'public interest' and not the private financial needs of developers. There is of course an important role for proffessional archaeologists to play in advising and preparing information for developers, but that service is provided by consultants and contractors.
I am interested in hearing which policies in PPS5 Unit of One is referring to when he states that it 'appears to leave the curation to the landowner', I have just skimmed through my copy and found lots of references to 'local planning authorities should take into account' and 'local planning authorities should not permit' which I take to be a reference to the role of curators (whether publically employed or not). Both PPS5 and as Unit of One rightly comments PPG16, place the responsiblity on applicants to 'provide information' to enable them to make their decision, but this is clearly different from curation.
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2006
I am not sure that to provide information is clearly different to curation
(it appears)
he6.1, he6.2 and he6.3 all appear to put the description of the ?significance of the heritage assets? on the applicant and application which to my mind belongs to the landowner. The owners of the archaeology are in effect providing the curation. If they were to ask an archaeologist (me) for an assessment it would still be their curation in the eyes of the planning authority. Obviously the planning authority do not have to agree with the applicants view of curation
In terms of the current (residual?) system we see very little of the description of the archaeology with the application. Either the mitigation such as evaluation/excavation has been undertaken in an informal pre-decision process often with only verbal and generalised policy statements for their requirement or there is a post determination condition often asking for a scheme of work as yet still to be agreed and it could be said the requirement for the scheme is still un-negotiated and may still require a full process of evaluation.
With almost all of my clients I get the why did they get the condition when they can easily cite similar developments next door which did not attract archaeological attention. It seems to me that if at the outset the applicant provided the intended curation we would then be able to follow what happens site by site and by documented public precedent be better able to advise our clients.
What we have at the moment in practise is un regulated curation
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2006
Quote:[SIZE=3]You do the report and the curator rejects the report because you failed to do something. As the construction work are advanced you can no longer obtain that information. The report cannot therefore be approved and the planning condition cannot be discharged. This means the development cannot be used. For example a house cannot be occupied you are liable. A claim will be made against you. If you have PI insurance there will be a clause saying you can only do things that you are competent to do ie have experience of.
[/SIZE]
In court do they make you pay off your university grant or the development first. Would be helpful to know what it was that the curator asked for that led to this claim. Is there any chance we could be given a clue as this might be a help to all us budding wbers?
Posts: 1
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2010
Surely to some extent curation by commercial outfits already occurs 'de facto' - typically a lot of our clients come to us before submitting any form of planning proposal, we advise them on any form of archaeological implications, prepare any relevent documentation in support of the application including proposals for any mitigation, and quite frequently the local authority curator effectively just rubber-stamps it, glad that someone else has done some of their work for them. It also avoids the sometimes awful specs that some Local Authority curators issue (saw one today where the site probably has Roman ditches running across it east-west so why are all the proposed trial trenches also running east-west....trying to miss them or something?). I hate to admit it, but Unit isn't totally mad, this could be made to work across the range as long as there was some form of monitoring of standards....oh, suppose that would just be more curators.....:face-crying:
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2006
7th July 2010, 05:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 7th July 2010, 05:41 PM by Unitof1.)
please forget about standards. we live in a world where archaeology is disappearing before our eyes and we archaeologists are grateful that amateurs and metal detectorist retrieve information before it is lost. I don’t care that there might be loads of cowboys out there who abuse the system or the standards. What I think is more important is that we get the opportunity to make any record of what is being destroyed before it goes. We are not getting the opportunity. We charge far to much for a load of bullexfodder ……
When I get clients who come to me “before”, its before they have bought the land. They ask me what the archaeological costs might be. I have to go and find out what happened next door (might be a few miles away). They want me to come up with a figure. I give them a range and it goes from archaeology might not be mentioned MOST OF THE TIME by the planning authority so don’t mention it yourself to its possibly a manor next to a church and the last three times one of those was excavated “I” think that it cost ?X. They then use those figures when they negotiate the price to buy the land. What I try to put in to the negotiations is that there should be a claw back clause in the deal for any subsequent archaeology. Lets say that the vendor agrees to pay for any subsequent archaeology up to ?40000. Whats good about this situation is that you have somebody who should be cash rich in theory.
mean while lets not advise this budding arch against undertaking a watching brief, i dont care if they have never looked at a hole in the ground, it sounds like they want too, that good enough for me-wbs are not dangerous, if you find something its up to you what you do with it, dont worry about the so called curators they are...it supper time
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2006
Quote:[SIZE=3]I hate to admit it, but Unit isn't totally mad
[/SIZE]
Quote:[SIZE=3]Sticks in my throat, but (it had to happen one day)......Unit of One is right!!
[/SIZE]
I have decided to stay in West Africa for the rest of my life
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2010
Not really a first Watching Brief nerves question but related. How many of you have unexpectedly found human remains during Watching Briefs on house extensions, and how have you dealt with them, during excavation and post ex?
Posts: 0
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2009
timber_wolf Wrote:Not really a first Watching Brief nerves question but related. How many of you have unexpectedly found human remains during Watching Briefs on house extensions, and how have you dealt with them, during excavation and post ex?
Well if you find them, you call the police, and take it from there. Call out contracts to specific individuals or units who deal with human remains in archaeological contexts do exist, so you might also find that part taken off your hands.
If not you'll need to design a post-ex scheme for them. Normally involving a specialist, to get the sex, age etc. of the individual (or more) and diseases, trauma etc. they suffered. Then depending on where they were found, you might get them radiocarbon dated.
It all depends on the context.
