Gloucester Council next....

[knapofhowar]

Warning of cuts at S Yorks SMR - http://www.rescue-archaeology.org.uk/map...ts/view/67

Remember, if you can find any substantiation of reports of Cuts (e.g. committee reports etc.), please think about adding it to the Rescue map - http://www.rescue-archaeology.org.uk/map...rts/submit

[kevin wooldridge]

Totally agree Shadow Jack.....as to whether a conflict of interest issue might arise when/if commercial companies take on 'curatorial' responsibilities....surely this must have been 'tested' at the time that Babtie took on the curatorial role in parts of Berkshire? I can't recall at the time seeing any announcement that the parent company would cease from it's wider commercial interests in that development control area (although I am always happy to be corrected if I am wrong!!).....

[Boxoffrogs]

urrr Kevin you are wrong, Big walls were placed so as not to allow then Babtie (now Jacobs) to make money from (outside the contract) the SMR work and curatorial services. The fact that in the main Babtie did little other consultancy work for build clients in Berkshire ( and Jacobs still does little) made it easy to demonstrate the same.

[differentcolourmud]

Also agree with shadowjack. in my experience the council units were far more conscientous about doing a job properly, and keeping a clear business separation with curators because of the potential for people to complain. curators are also likley to lean more heavily on a council unit because of this - and certainly never give slack to allow undercut on costs

plus with Freedom of Information requests now any dodgy practices could be easily exposed

[Unitof1]

[SIZE=3]Actually whats happening is that evals are being required instead of watching briefs as a first stage of work.

[/SIZE]
Yes yes yes yes yes, please let it be true, at last, exactly what ppg16 said should happen, yes ppg16? what does algao have to say about this then, vulpes have you heard about this?desklessoneman look and learn. I believe folks that if this precedent sticks that it will be better than wave parting for field archaeology.

thank you differentcolourmud- I had only heard about post determination examples so presumed that they all might be. Presumably the county have been getting to all the pre determinations first?..

[ShadowJack]

Presumably the county have been getting to all the pre determinations first?..

......based on my experience, presumably not

[Unitof1]

in your experience are evals are being required instead of watching briefs as a first stage of work

[Sith]

If this is worth the pixels its written on, then can one assume that archaeological advice to planners is a legal requirement?

In fact, footnote 1 of PPS 5 states that the planning policies contained are 'consistent with our obligations as a signatory to the Council of Europe’s ‘Granada’ Convention (The Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe), ‘Valetta’ Convention (The European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage), the ‘Florence’ Convention (The European Landscape Convention) and the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention.'

So it must be true.

And would Big Society do-gooders, if not appropriately qualified or experienced, be suitable advisers?

Surely this is an extension of the 'volunteers steal jobs from hardworking professionals' argument.

[P Prentice]

perhaps one of the assembled luminaries could explain just how a local authority contractor can have an unfair advantage over a private contractor?

[ShadowJack]

Would it be presumptous of me to assume that perhaps Unitof1 could enlighten us?