TII Cultural Heritage Guidelines Project

Objective

The Cultural Heritage Guidance and Standard will set out the expected requirements for undertaking Cultural Heritage Impact Assessments (CHIA) and the production and delivery of the Cultural Heritage outputs for inclusion with Option Selection Reports, Environmental Impact Assessment Reports (EIAR’s) and/or Environmental Reports (ER’s) for TII Projects.

Key deliverable – Overarching guidance and standards regulating assessment of the impacts on the Cultural Heritage of projects funded by or carried out under the auspices of TII.​

The purpose of this Guidance and Standard is to:

  • Outline the application of CHIA during the planning, assessment, and design stages for proposed TII Projects.
  • Outline the review process of the application and implementation of CHIA to ensure appropriate evaluation and analysis of the baseline (or receiving Cultural Heritage environment) within which a Project is being planned.
  • Apply CHIA in a manner that is proportionate to the complexity and scale of a Project and the likely significance of its Cultural Heritage effects.
  • Provide consistency to the consideration of CHIA during the planning, selection, design, assessment, and delivery phases of a Project as set out in TII’s Project Management Guidelines (PMG), Project Manager’s Manuals (PMM) and Project Appraisal Guidelines (PAG).
  • Assist proposed Projects to achieve their Cultural Heritage objectives in line with legislative requirements and government policy, including enhancement of the Cultural Heritage environment and experience of the road user where possible.

The Guidance and Standard are being developed by Archaeological Management Solutions Ltd (AMS) on behalf of TII based on a literature review, extensive consultation and analysis of best practice outside Ireland.

Progress Updates:

  • AMS submitted a first draft of the Guidance to TII in February 2021.
  • AMS submitted a second draft of the Guidance and a draft Standard to TII in early July 2021. This draft is based on feedback received from TII and on a series of workshops with TII’s Archaeology and Heritage Team. Draft 2 also reflects input from the project’s Stakeholder Advisory Group, external specialists, and other stakeholders.
  • A Peer Review of the revised draft Guidance was completed by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and Arup consulting engineers in early September 2021.
  • The draft Guidance and Standard was revised based on feedback from TII and the Peer Reviewers and on an additional workshop with TII’s Archaeology and Heritage Team.
  • The revised draft was made available to the Stakeholder Advisory Group and other external stakeholders for review on 22nd October 2021.
  • A meeting of the Stakeholder Advisory Group took place on 2 November 2021 to discuss the draft Guidance document.
  • Stakeholders were given the opportunity to submit their feedback in writing using a feedback form provided. Responses were received over a 30-day period, ending 22 November 2021.
  • Based on the external stakeholder feedback, an updated draft was prepared. This draft, version 3.1, was open for Public Consultation from the 21st January to 21st February 2022.

Next Steps:

  • TII and AMS now invite practitioners of CHIA to participate in an online Practitioners’ Workshop to be held on Thursday 19 May 2022 from 10.30am to 1pm. The workshop will be held on Microsoft Teams. 
    • AMS will provide a brief overview of the project and the current drafts of the new guidance and standards and their key requirements. However, the main purpose of the workshop is to get feedback from Cultural Heritage Professionals and other specialists interacting with CHIA before the documents enter their final stage of drafting. 

In preparation for the workshop, participants are asked to: 

  1. Register now and book your place by subscribing to our project mailing list using the form below.
  2. Watch the video on the AMS YouTube channel which gives a brief background to the project (this video was prepared for the recent Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland Conference in Belfast). 
  3. Read the draft Overarching Technical Document and draft Standards Document which will be circulated to participants in advance of the workshop. 
  4. Contact AMS at the bryn.coldrick@ams-consultancy.com below before 12 May 2022 with a list of topics you would like us to discuss at the workshop (maximum four topics per person). 


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