6 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Periodically After the lamentations by some about the loss of the Heritage Bill, there is a cautionary tale in The Historic Environment: policy and practice (Vol 2, No 2, 2011). It might be characterised as: be careful what you wish for. Raimund Karl describes the unintended consequences of Austria’s legislative equivalent of the UK Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act and also our Portable Antiquities Scheme. Austria’s laudable aim of licensing archaeological fieldwork only to those professionally competent to undertake it (archaeology graduates) led to a dramatic decline in the number of finds reported by members of the public. The author summarises this as ‘a heavy-handed, inconsiderate application of a well-intended but badly phrased law’, the Austrian National Heritage Agency having ‘virtually lost the ability to manage and protect the archaeological heritage of Austria’; legislation ‘utterly unsustainable and seriously damaging to archaeology and archaeologists alike’ leaving archaeologists ‘with responsibilities but no rights’. Sobering reading here for both enthusiasts for and skeptics of the Heritage Bill.With both camps still attempting to square the intensions of the 1990 Act, its unrelated National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) phraseology and associated good practice guidance. Of course, PPS5 is no longer with us, so the article about the potential deployment of discretionary powers by planning authorities under the statement to preserve heritage assets has been rather overtaken by events, especially in relation to fixed and immobile vessels from the UK’s National Historic Fleet. The mobilisation of national policy in the case of the paddle steamer Ryde, now abandoned and derelict on the foreshore near Newport, Isle of White, is the subject of a paper by Fred Aldsworth. He concludes by observing that English Heritage was intending to prepare guidance on the relationship between historic ships and planning, to be published on the HELM website. There is no obvious sign of it. If heritage is still often defined as a physical abstraction without a proper relationship to its occupiers, the paper by Ioannis Poulios gives pause for thought by posing the question: is every heritage site a ‘living one’? This term has received increasing recognition in the field of conservation, but the concept of community remains abstract. Community involvement, especially within the terms of world heritage site management, is still far from successful. Poulios argues that the strict concepts of world heritage tend to suppress the role of communities in maintaining and enhancing the living tradition of a site, but where they are given the primary role this can often be at the expense of the protection of the material evidence. It would be an interesting debating point were it to be applied to UK heritage assets generally. Sustainability, its definition and application, is the leitmotif of the NPPF, but it is of pressing concern everywhere. In North America its relationship to the philosophies and knowledge associated with building conservation and planning formed the keynote lecture by Mark Holland to the annual conference of APT in Victoria, British Columbia last year. The lecture forms the lead article in the latest edition of the Association of Preservation Technology bulletin, The Journal of Preservation Technology (Vol XLIII, No 1, 2012). In the UK the urgency to address sustainability issues is no less great and they have to be tackled globally. Holland believes that this should not be about us surviving but about ‘thriving’, and that one of the most important principles underpinning this is the building of a much stronger connection between ourselves and the places in which we live. Is this more ‘localism’ than just local physical distinctiveness? Holland argues that contemporary culture and technology make us too physically, socially and emotionally distracted and disconnected from where we live.We need to find greater ‘meaning’ in all aspects of personal and community life, how this meaning connects us to the fabric of time and place, and where we fit into that fabric. These are important concepts that should resonate more strongly if read together with those of Ioannis Poulios (above). Other articles cover important technical issues. Jennifer Schork, NormanWeiss and JohnWalsh present the comparative laboratory evaluation of conservation mortars, with particular reference to the growing number of binders – albeit naturally hydraulic ones
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