planning problems close to ring fort?

jack77

i'm considering making an offer on an old cottage which has a ring fort close by about 8 to 10 meters away i'd say from the gable end, i'd be looking to put an extension on the house but not on this side of the house or in anyway interfering with the structure, it has been mapped and logged by the relevant people already, so in ye're opinion would there be a major problem with planning?

muffler

You could well be asked for an archaeological assessment and that will set you back a wee bit. You're probably better off getting a pre planning meeting with the local planner in advance.

Tordelback

Your cottage will be well within in the Archaeological Planning Constraint Zone for the ringfort (printed maps available of these zones in your CC office, usually extend about 30m from the monument). by law you need to give 90 days advance notice of any proposed works within this area to the National Monuments Service, or as suggested have a chat with the local planners and they could do all that for you. You will almost certainly need an archaeological assessment undertaken, by a licensed archaeological consultant, which will cost a bit. However, if it's only an extension to a cottage this kind of assessment should be no big deal.

Depending on what that assessment turns up you potentially could be refused planning, or required to take on the costs of some kind of remedial work (have an archaeologist monitor groundworks, or carry out an excavation of the affected area), which will cost more again, or there might be no problem at all and that'd be the end of it. The problem is that buried archaeological remains within the soil frequently extend well beyond the surviving visible part of a ringfort, with below-ground remains of structures, boundaries, rubbish pits, all that sort of thing, and these could well survive somewhere beneath your cottage.

There's a zoomable map on the Archaeology.ie website that'd give you the site reference number and some outline details about the ringfort, which might be useful.

I'd be happy to PM you some more info if that'd be helpful.

fclauson

Our house is about 50M from a fort - during site clearance we had to have a archaeologist on site which cost about 3 days work for him plus the writing of a report

We did this before signing up the main contractor because if there was an issue we then had the option to stop and not proceed.

jack77

That would be great Tordelback any extra info on hand would of great help thank you

jack77

would be of great help, is what i meant, i know the answer to this may be how long is a piece of string answer, but how much would an archaeological assessment cost? i found the details of the site on Archaeology.ie but this seems a very basic assessment of the site basically just registering it i suppose, would their be any point in looking for the full report of the site?

Tordelback

jack77 wrote: »

would be of great help, is what i meant, i know the answer to this may be how long is a piece of string answer, but how much would an archaeological assessment cost? i found the details of the site on Archaeology.ie but this seems a very basic assessment of the site basically just registering it i suppose, would their be any point in looking for the full report of the site?

Chances are that's the bulk of it Jack77. There'll be a paper file in National Monuments in Dublin with a photo and any previous references to it, but unless its been investigated before that's probably all there is. I'll send you a PM with some ideas about cost/timescale.

jack77

That'd be great thanks