CIfA 2021 A Guide for Clients

38 OTHER RESOUCES FOR CL IENTS | GUIDANCE FOR CL IENTS THE CIRIA (CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY RESEARCH AND INFORMATION ASSOCIATION) GUIDE ARCHAEOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTION: GOOD PRACTICE GUIDANCE Authors: Taryn Nixon MCIfA, Heritage Works, MOLA and CIfA www.ciria.org Archaeology is a necessary and positive element of many construction projects, and directly and indirectly contributes to sustainable development. When construction and archaeology processes are managed by an integrated team working to common goals, they deliver significant commercial and public value. This CIRIA guide provides good practice advice and practical information for managing the archaeological elements of the project at each stage of construction, from feasibility and due diligence through to post-construction use. By mapping the correlation between stages in the construction and development, archaeology and environmental impact assessment processes, the guide identifies key points for decision-making, information exchange and regulatory approvals. It summarises the main good practice activities at each stage, including stages when archaeological activities are taking place off-site. The CIRIA guide emphasises how early engagement and collaboration manages for the unexpected, and how shared understanding allows integrated teams to plan and manage for positive and mutually beneficial outcomes. It sets out how an integrated approach not only avoids planning delays, additional costs or enforcement action, but also helps meet construction and development targets at the level of the scheme and as part of wider sustainable development and public benefit goals. The guide shows how to achieve that team integration and collaborative planning, by identifying the interfaces between the archaeological Written Scheme of Investigation and the suite of construction management plans and it advises on how to ensure a unified Safety, Health and Environment culture in the context of the UK’s Construction, Design and Management Regulations. Outlining the relevant law and policy context, the guide introduces the responsibilities and opportunities that archaeology brings to construction. It summarises how the planning system expects archaeology to create public benefits, not only creating new knowledge about the past but providing a wide portfolio of social, economic and environmental gains. It addresses steps to optimise how archaeology enables archaeological planning conditions to be discharged. It considers how to use archaeology to contribute directly to construction cost and programme efficiencies, and to sustainability and performance targets, for example in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, BREEAM, CEEQUAL, Skills, Education and Employment (SEE), Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). The guide takes a positive approach to risk management and provides practical guidance on approaches to safety, programme delivery, cost-effectiveness and reputation. It emphasises the role of the WSI as the main archaeological control and quality assurance document. The CIRIA guide shows how the outputs from archaeological work deliver social impact and benefit the scheme. Outputs from archaeological work – such as research and educational information, opportunities for public and stakeholder participation, narratives from archaeology and archives from each archaeological intervention – all represent a construction and development legacy, and are used to support place-making, marketing, scheme promotion, wellbeing, community cohesion and wider economic, social and environmental impact. Drawing from decades of archaeology in construction, the guide is supported throughout by good practice case studies: some come from large schemes and others from small, but all the illustrated good practice can be scaled to meet project needs. In the guide, highlighted key messages reinforce understanding; checklists provide detailed guidance for practical implementation. This CIRIA guide is not intended to tell construction professionals everything they need to know about archaeology, nor to turn archaeological readers into construction experts. Rather, it makes the most of both sectors’ expertise, using the synergies and impact of collaborative working to deliver projects that reflect the significance of the past and create sustainable, positive developments, infrastructure and places.