Central Bedfordshire Council Planning Pages

Conditions or Reasons for Planning Application - CB/24/00669/DOC

Conditions or Reasons:

17) Part A: No development shall take place until an archaeological written scheme of investigation (WSI) that adopts a staged approach, has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority.

The WSI shall include the following components:

a method statement for an intrusive archaeological trial trench evaluation of the site, including provision for post excavation reporting, archive preparation and archive deposition
an outline method statement for the excavation of any archaeological remains found during the trial trench evaluation
an outline strategy for post-excavation assessment, analysis and publication of the excavation work, including details of the timetable for each stage of the post-excavation works

Items 2 and 3 of Part A of this condition will be finalised following the completion of the trial evaluation and the approval of the evaluation report by the Archaeology Team. The updated WSI for the excavation will then be approved by the Archaeology Team before any further fieldwork or development is undertaken. Should no archaeological remains be recorded during the evaluation it will not be necessary to complete Items 2 and 3 of Part A and the applicant or developer can proceed with completing the work to discharge Part B.

Part B: The said development shall only be implemented in full accordance with the approved WSI and this condition shall only be fully discharged when:

All stages of the archaeological fieldwork (evaluation, excavation and if appropriate any monitoring) have been undertaken and the date of completion has been confirmed in writing by the Local Planning Authority
a Post Excavation Assessment report and an Updated Project Design or a final archaeological report has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. This shall be done within 12 months of the date of completion of the archaeological fieldwork unless otherwise agreed in advance in writing by the Local Planning Authority
the post-excavation analysis as specified in the approved Updated Project Design (if one is prepared) has been completed
the preparation of the site archives (both physical and digital) for deposition at stores approved by the Local Planning Authority has been undertaken and confirmed in writing by the Local Planning Authority. For the digital archive this will include confirmation of the intention to deposit with a CoreTrustSeal certified repository dedicated to storing archaeological archives.
the preparation of an archive report and the submission of a publication report have been completed and confirmed in writing by the Local Planning Authority

Unless otherwise agreed in advance in writing by the Local Planning Authority, items 3 and 4 of Part B of this condition shall be completed within 2 years of the archaeological fieldwork date of completion. Item 5 shall be completed within 3 years of the archaeological fieldwork date of completion.

Reason: This condition is pre-commencement as a failure to secure archaeological investigation in advance of development, to secure the long term future of the archive and to make the record of that work publicly available would be contrary to policy HE1 of the Central Bedfordshire Local Plan 2015-2031 (adopted July 2021) and paragraph 205 of the National Planning Policy Framework that requires developers to record and advance of understanding of the significance of any heritage assets affected by development before they are lost (wholly or in part).

Return to Search | Close Window

Top of Page

Useful information