The Independent Website That Asks The Awkward Questions
Limited Thinking
The Conservation Reports for the Ross Sea Huts place a considerable
emphasis on the fact that they are produced through a significant
amount of research and international heritage expertise.
It enables the Trust to boast that:
There is no doubt that this is all true.
However, it invites you to assume that the Trust has, indeed, consulted a wide range of Heritage Expertise, beyond heritage/building consultants and costed several possible courses of action leading to a reasoned choice. This is open to question.
On a project of this scale and importance, one might have expected an international competition to come up with imaginative solutions for the sites (such as that held in 2006 to re-design the British Antarctic Survey Base at Halley). There was no such high-profile competition.
On a project of this scale and importance, one might have expected that there were ‘competing’ conservation plans costed and put onto the table to be chosen between. There were not. Only one option was progressed to a full plan. In other words, some options were given more serious consideration than others and only one given full consideration.
Appendix 3 of the Conservation Plan for Cape Evans (2004) lists in some detail the conservation philosophy and the options which were “seriously considered”:
If one asks one expert a question one will get one answer, and if one asks another, one will usually get a different one. Option three was “the route recommended to the Trust”. The problem here is that the companies that were making the recommendations are also those profiting from their execution. This is not to impugn the integrity of the heritage expertise engaged in any way, it is, no doubt, first class. However, if you ask limited questions you will receive limited answers.
The limitations of the questioning process undertaken are made clear by the fact that the first option was dismissed as “being contrary to the central purpose of the Antarctic Heritage Trust” - which must lead to the question as to whether the Trust is constituted in such a way as to enable it to make informed choices about the future of the huts i.e. is the Antarctic Heritage Trust fit for purpose? Given that the interests of the Trust were clearly taken to override one of the choices that maintains the historic integrity of the sites, it is a fundamental question.
“The project has been developed by the Trust's Project Team with advice from various international government Antarctic agencies… This is a long-term, world-leading project and internationally recognised experts in their relevant fields have been contracted to work on the project.” (Antarctic Heritage Trust Website)
It enables the Trust to boast that:
“… they are, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive heritage conservation documents ever produced for a polar heritage site. “
There is no doubt that this is all true.
However, it invites you to assume that the Trust has, indeed, consulted a wide range of Heritage Expertise, beyond heritage/building consultants and costed several possible courses of action leading to a reasoned choice. This is open to question.
On a project of this scale and importance, one might have expected an international competition to come up with imaginative solutions for the sites (such as that held in 2006 to re-design the British Antarctic Survey Base at Halley). There was no such high-profile competition.
On a project of this scale and importance, one might have expected that there were ‘competing’ conservation plans costed and put onto the table to be chosen between. There were not. Only one option was progressed to a full plan. In other words, some options were given more serious consideration than others and only one given full consideration.
Appendix 3 of the Conservation Plan for Cape Evans (2004) lists in some detail the conservation philosophy and the options which were “seriously considered”:
- Option One: To do nothing and allow the sites to return to nature
- Option Two: To provide minimal ongoing maintenance and avoid replication
- Option Three: To intervene in a substantive way with major repairs, replication and reinterpretation
- Option Four: To remove contents to a Museum
- Option Five: To cover the site with a protective structure
- Option Six: To Remove the entire site (structures and contents) to a Museum
If one asks one expert a question one will get one answer, and if one asks another, one will usually get a different one. Option three was “the route recommended to the Trust”. The problem here is that the companies that were making the recommendations are also those profiting from their execution. This is not to impugn the integrity of the heritage expertise engaged in any way, it is, no doubt, first class. However, if you ask limited questions you will receive limited answers.
The limitations of the questioning process undertaken are made clear by the fact that the first option was dismissed as “being contrary to the central purpose of the Antarctic Heritage Trust” - which must lead to the question as to whether the Trust is constituted in such a way as to enable it to make informed choices about the future of the huts i.e. is the Antarctic Heritage Trust fit for purpose? Given that the interests of the Trust were clearly taken to override one of the choices that maintains the historic integrity of the sites, it is a fundamental question.