This story picked up by eagle-eyed Rescue from a noncommittal dispatch from the Liverpool Museums website. Lets be under no illusions folks. This is the opening salvo. We are witnessing nothing less than a whole-scale dismantling of the planning process.
No more archaeological advice to planning applicants. No more HER (historic environment record). No more jobs for commercial archaeologists.
The writing is on the (series of small) walls
not good, another one gone!
Ros – this is actually much much worse than another council contracting unit being off loaded. This is the actual curatorial arm – those whose role it is to issue planning advice, and therefore create the conditions for the market to function in the first place. It’s a step change, and if many more follow suit, will represent the dismantling of the planning process in relation to archaeological protection.
And in an area with a World Heritage Site too. The thin end of the wedge.
Quite. The thin end of a nasty wedgie. A very nasty wedgie.