An assessment of the archaeological potential of the housing, employment and town centre sites set out in the Proposed Submission Burnley Local Plan was commissioned form the Lancashire Archaeological Advisory Service using the County Council’s Lancashire Historic Environment Record to inform the site selection and policies of the Plan.
Scope of the Assessment
Lancashire Archaeological Advisory Service undertook a desk based ‘rapid heritage assessment’ of the sites to determine the nature of the known and potential archaeological resource within the sites.
The assessment concerns the buried archaeological heritage and does not relate to the historic landscape, the historic built environment or listed buildings. Each site has been assessed using the available data in the Lancashire Historic Environment Record. No further documentary search has been undertaken and no site visits were made as part of this appraisal.
The comments are based on consideration of known archaeology (summarised on a site by site basis) and the potential for further, undiscovered archaeological assets. It should be noted that the Lancashire Historic Environment Record is a dynamic database which is regularly updated to take account of new information (often from the results of archaeological fieldwork) and therefore over time, responses may change.
Results of Assessment
Of the thirty-five housing sites assessed, the Historic Environment Record (HER) information indicates that there will be no archaeological constraint to the redevelopment of nineteen of the sites. Archaeological mitigation is considered likely to be necessary for the remainder of the sites (sixteen sites) including some form of pre-determination (of any planning application) investigation which may be in the form of desk based assessment, walk-over survey, trial trenching and/or geophysics. None of the sites have been identified as being inappropriate for development due the potential adverse impact on archaeology.
Of the fourteen employment sites assessed, the Historic Environment Record (HER) information indicates that there will be no archaeological constraint to the redevelopment of five of the sites. Archaeological mitigation is considered likely to be necessary for the remainder of the sites (nine sites) including some form of pre-determination investigation which may be in the form of trial trenching and/or geophysics. None of the sites have been identified as being inappropriate for development due the potential adverse impact on archaeology.
