Public participation on a commercial excavation, Braehead, Glasgow
In 2001 AOC Archaeology Group was commissioned by Capital Shopping Centres to carry out the complete excavation of a 0.5 ha cropmark site at Braehead, Glasgow in response to a specific archaeological planning condition. The planning conditions also set out a requirement for the provision of a public participation package alongside the excavation, to provide ‘community gain’ for the development.
As part of the public participation package, the AOC Archaeology Group field archaeologists undertaking the excavation also supervised up to five volunteers each day in addition to providing guided tours of the site to visitors. An on-site exhibition complemented with a schools education pack and web site, all designed by AOC Archaeology, and press releases issued by AOC were successful in bringing over a thousand visitors to the excavation and many more to the excavation web site.
A report discussing the strategy and results of the Braehead public participation package was published in 2004 by Archaeopress in the Interpreting the Ambiguous: Archaeology and Interpretation in Early 21st Century Britain conference proceedings (BAR British Series 362).