There could be no problems in Link road going through
site of Ancient Monument Submitted by: John Mack on Jun
09, 2006
At the ( M1 Widening Junctions 21 – 30 ) ‘Additional
Public Consultation’ meeting, held on Monday 22nd May
2006 at the Leicester Forest East ‘Parish Hall’
some residents put forward a proposal to have the line of
the M69 link roads re-routed to join the M1 south of the existing
North-bound Service area. This route would be across fields
that are used for agricultural purposes at the present time,
thus alleviating all the problems of raising the road level
of the A47 / M1 Bridge. However this would entail going though
a small part of a ‘Scheduled Ancient Monument’.
I checked out the standing of sites of Ancient Monuments
and Building Work.
There are three options:
Read on.....
The first, if a site is of national importance - No Building
on site.
Secondly: Notes are taken of general site details,
but otherwise Building goes over the top of the site.
If the Building Work entails digging into the site, then
Archaeological Survey of site must take place, any finds removed,
then Building Work can take place.
The sites of Ancient Monuments and Building Work are covered
by the Department of Communities and Local Government ‘Planning
Policy Guidance 16: Archaeology and Planning (PPG 16).
What PPG 16 says
The document advises that archaeological remains are a finite
and irreplaceable resource and that their presence should
be a material consideration in applications for new development.
It accepts that development will affect archaeological deposits
and that this effect must be mitigated. PPG 16 stresses the
importance of the evaluation of a site for its archaeological
potential in advance of development in order to inform future
management decisions. This evaluation may involve non intrusive
methods such as a desk-based study or geophysical survey and/or
a more direct method such as trial trenching.
Following the results of the initial evaluation, PPG 16 offers
two solutions for preserving any significant archaeological
deposits found to be on a development site. The first, and
explicitly preferred, method involves preservation in situ
whereby the archaeology is left untouched beneath a new development
through methods such as adaptation of foundation design and
architectural layout of the proposed new development, or by
raising the level of the development with made ground so that
its foundations do not reach the archaeological horizon. Where
nationally important remains are encountered this method of
preservation is strongly preferred.
If preservation in situ is not feasible then PPG 16 permits
preservation by record. This involves archaeological fieldwork
to excavate and record finds and features (thereby destroying
them). This may involve a full excavation, further trenching
in specific areas or an archaeological watching brief which
involves an archaeologist monitoring groundworks for the new
development and recording any finds or features revealed as
construction continues.
