So far 3 definite Yes’s, a couple who appear undecided, and no one against – yet. But that still leaves by my guestimate 70 odd HER officers yet to register an opinion.

 

I’ll reduce that number by one – I think this is an excellent idea long overdue, and will have significant benefits for all users, including those involved in the planning process. And I don’t think any of the problems are insurmountable – they just involved changed thinking about where resources are targeted and how services are delivered – but not changing course, more just refining it.

 

But it does need to be fairly unanimous to work – so are there any nay sayers?

 

Or is everyone going to join in with a chorus reminiscent of Life of Brian/Spartacus?

 

 

 

I doubt making it a national requirement would make any difference, as I expect that most offline HERs have IT, staff time and/or funding issues stopping them from delivering an online database that wouldn’t be solved by this (especially given the resource issues many of us have at present, and will have over the next few years). Having that stick to wave at managers won’t do much good when they are almost in panic about delivering their statutory requirements.

 

I’m not sure if it would be workable, but I have wondered for some time now whether Pastscape could be re-configured to take data from the HERs – if the NHRE was “stopped” then that would remove some problems with this. Because we all use the same data standards it surely shouldn’t be too difficult to compile some kind of joint database?

 

As for a later point, about lack of any data for some areas where there is no HER – perhaps this is a good thing? I do wonder if LPAs that don’t have an HER are depending on the NHRE/Pastscape to supply data instead, and if this was no longer available it would increase pressure to support an HER as it would be even harder to comply with statutory requirements for EIAs and alike.

 

 

 

It seems clear that were this to happen we would need a better heritage gateway/Hermes type point of call for the data. It would be a significant weakness if not all HERs were online – but a national requirement (however expressed) to get HERs online might be the kick that some authorities need to get them to improve their HER’s status and accessibility.

 

 

 

Agreed, this is a weakness that needs to be addressed. However I believe it will become easier to address this when the respective roles and responsibilities are clarified.

 

The technical mechanisms for giving contractors efficient access to datasets that are managed in a distributed network don’t exist yet, and this is the main focus of our “Hermes” proposal.

 

Atb

Crispin

 

 

I’d agree with Paul, however it won’t necessarily solve all his problems for projects requiring data covering ‘vast swathes of the country’. Although point one says ‘all the data will be in one place’ that will be the case for each HER area not nationally or regionally and as not all HERs are on the Heritage Gateway (or even online at all) it won’t be possible to get all the data at the same time from one place or run national thematic interrogations.

 

Martin   

 

From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Cripps
Sent: 18 November 2014 08:53
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HERFORUM] E Conference Day 2 - Is it a good idea?

 

In a word YES this is a fantastic idea, one that promises to resolve many of the issues related to use of data.

Having been scarred by working on big projects involving vast swathes of the country, I can firmly state the reconciliation process involved in just producing a gazetteer of sites to work with will be dramatically improved if this proposal comes to be; it can currently take days if not weeks just to sift through HER & NHRE records to work out what's what, which records are duplicated & which have useful information. This is a massive cost to contractors/consultants which can be alleviated by this proposal.

So yes, some details to be worked out, but this is a ground breaking move which should be applauded and supported.

Nick Boldrini <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

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