4.7 The Regional Teams

4.7.1 South Coast Martello Tower Study.
4.7.2 Ships Timbers at Chatham Dockyard.
4.7.3 Laxton.
4.7.4 Thurvaston, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
4.7.5 Ironbridge.

The majority of EH's statutory and advisory work is carried out within the multi-disciplinary regional teams of Conservation Group. These teams are made up of archaeologists, architects, planners, architectural historians, and administrators. The individuals with the primary responsibility for the archaeological casework by these teams are the Inspectors of Ancient Monuments. Reporting to them are the Field Monument Wardens, who are out stationed archaeological staff responsible for checking the condition of scheduled monuments through a programme of visits. The range of archaeological work undertaken by the regional teams falls into four broad categories:

• Casework on scheduled monuments (scheduled monument consent, repair grants, management agreements, and routine monitoring);
• Advice to statutory agencies, local authorities, land owners, and members of the public;
• Contributions to the assessment, management, and monitoring of archaeology projects, supported through the archaeology budget;
• participation in the development of corporate archaeological policy, through the Archaeology Strategy Group, and by specific policy initiatives and projects.

Inspectors must liaise with other team members to ensure that the archaeological component of the historic environment is adequately taken into account, for example in decisions affecting development of a historic building or a site within an historic area. Archaeological casework can be complex and may involve additional liaison with specialist colleagues including the Ancient Monuments Laboratory, or EH engineers, surveyors, and lawyers; Inspectors also work closely with the MPP, and when a monument is scheduled, responsibility for casework and monitoring rests with the regional team.

Advisory work also involves frequent contact with a wide range of other bodies including local government archaeological services, archaeological units, local planning authorities, and national agencies such as English Nature, the Countryside Commission, the Environment Agency, and the RCHME, as well as Government departments, principally the (former) Department of National Heritage, (now the Department for Culture, Media and Sport), but also those departments with responsibility for the environment, transport, defence, and agriculture. Close liaison is also necessary with statutory bodies, universities, and the voluntary sector, and the extent of such contacts is almost unlimited. The range of individuals and organisations with whom liaison is necessary, and the diverse nature of the problems encounter, is an indication of welcome steps towards the development of an integrated approach to the protection and management of the historic environment. The regional teams have recently become responsible for advice to the Heritage Lottery Fund on applications for lottery grants. Although such funds are not yet available for purely archaeological projects, those that have qualified to date include the major repair and reuse of listed and scheduled buildings and sites, which inevitably raises a wide variety of archaeological issues.

The regional teams continue to contribute to archaeological policy initiatives such as England's Coastal Heritage, and the intensive and extensive Urban Archaeological Programmes. Building on the survey of coastal and maritime archaeology commissioned last year, we have been taking forward some of the recommendations relate to our regions, for example in the preparation of a research framework for the Thames estuary. The Urban Archaeology Programme is also gathering pace and both the extensive and intensive surveys are increasing in number. The regional teams have an essential role to play in bringing to bear the knowledge gained through casework, and for using the contacts they have established within their regions; the following examples serve to illustrate the varied range of work in which we are engaged.