The archaeological work of the Regional Teams

Since April 1991, much of English Heritage's statutory and advisory work has been integrated within the multi-disciplinary regional teams of Conservation Group. The range of archaeological work undertaken within these teams falls into four main areas:

• casework on scheduled monuments (scheduled monument consent, repair grants, management agreements, and routine monitoring);
• advice to statutory agencies, local authorities, landowners, and members of the public;
• contributing to the assessment, management, and monitoring of archaeology projects supported through the archaeology budget;
• participating in the development of corporate archaeological policy through the Archaeology Forum.

The Inspectors and Field Monument wardens work closely with colleagues within English Heritage and with a wide variety of external organisations and individuals. Complex scheduled monuments cases may, for example, involve coordinating input from the Ancient Monuments Laboratory, architects, surveyors, and others. Inspectors work closely with the Monuments Protection Programme when scheduling proposals raise complex issues of management. Once a monument is scheduled, responsibility for casework and monitoring resides with the regional team. Our advisory work involves frequent contact with County Archaeological Officers, archaeological units, local planning authorities, national agencies (notably English Nature, the Countryside Commission, and the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England), government departments, statutory undertakers, universities, and the voluntary sector. The range of these contacts marks a welcome trend towards the integrated protection and management of the historic environment.

A number of topics have been important in the archaeological work of the regional teams during 1994-95. The review of local government has continued to be a significant issue; it is clear that, although the scale of change will be much less than had once seemed likely, the creation of a number of unitary authorities will have implications for the existing county council archaeological teams covering those areas. Advice to the Highways Agency, to assist the Agency in meeting the full responsibility for archaeology on trunk road schemes which it assumed in 1993, has been an important area of work, as has policy work on coastal archaeology. Good progress has also been made on management plans for the World Heritage Sites of Avebury and Hadrian's Wall.

The year saw the publication of two documents which are important for the work of the regional teams. The first was PPG15 on Planning and the historic environment which introduces broadly similar provisions for the assessment and recording of historic buildings to those which PPG16 contains for archaeological remains. The second was the draft of English Heritage's Battlefields Register. This gives official recognition for the first time to this hitherto somewhat neglected category of site. Historic battlefield sites arouse wide public interest, and this is a significant new area of work for Inspectors in the regional teams.

Historic Landscape Assessment

Historic Buildings and Monuments Grants

Parks and Gardens

The East Thames Corridor Study