Devon County Council has recently published a leaflet outlining guidance on The Historic Environment Service & Planning (698KB - pdf help).

If you are planning a development, it pays to seek advice from the Devon County Archaeological Service as early as possible before submitting a planning application. This can save time and money and avoid problems later.

The Devon County Archaeological Service currently provides archaeological advice for the following Local Planning Authority areas:

• East Devon
• Mid Devon
• North Devon
• South Hams
• Teignbridge
• Torridge
• West Devon

For developments within Dartmoor National Park and Exmoor National Park, the City of Exeter, Plymouth and Torbay, you will need to contact the historic environment services provided by these authorities.

An initial consultation will show whether there are any known, or likely, archaeological remains within or adjacent to a proposed development. After this preliminary appraisal it may be necessary to commission a fuller archaeological assessment or evaluation by a professionally qualified archaeological contractor. The report on this work should accompany the planning application, and include an assessment of the likely archaeological effects of the development and any measures proposed to reduce its impact. The Local Planning Authority may defer a planning decision until this information is available.

The first priority is the preservation of important archaeological remains where they are. To achieve this, the archaeological impact of the development could be minimised by, for example, sympathetic foundation design or amendments to the layout to avoid identified archaeology. If this is not feasible, then detailed archaeological excavation, recording and publication of the results will be required. If the archaeological remains are of particular importance then planning permission may not be granted. It is national and local practice that the costs of archaeological work made necessary by development should in most cases be borne by the developer.

Archaeological implications will be a material consideration for the Local Planning Authority when making a planning decision. If further archaeological work is necessary this can be secured either by the use of a planning condition, or by a legal agreement under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. A typical planning condition would be:

No development shall take place until the applicant, their agent or successor in title has secured the implementation of a programme of archaeological recording in accordance with a written scheme of investigation that has been submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority.

Such a programme of recording may involve full excavation of the identified archaeology well in advance of development commencing. In other cases, particularly small-scale development, recording of archaeological remains may be required when the development is underway; this is known as a watching brief.

Archaeology in Practice

Archaeological work, before and during development, can take a number of forms:

Desk-based assessment: a detailed appraisal of available information about a site before a planning application is submitted or approved. Sources of information can be the Devon County Historic Environment Record (or SMR), published reports in local journals, historic maps and aerial photographs.

Field evaluation: a survey or trial excavation designed to assess the nature, extent and importance of archaeological remains within a proposed development area before a planning application is submitted or approved. Techniques may include fieldwalking, geophysical survey and trial trenching.

Excavation and recording: a controlled programme of fieldwork, usually involving full excavation, with analysis and publication of the findings, to provide a lasting record of archaeological evidence that will otherwise be destroyed by the development.

Watching brief: the recording of archaeological evidence coming to light during the course of development.

More detailed advice can be found in the Historic Environment and Development Practice Note (March 2009) (984KB - pdf help)