The sort of permission you need to get to carry out work on or near archaelogical site depends of the status of the site.

Some archaeological sites are given legal protection by becoming scheduled ancient monuments. You need consent from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to carry out work on ancient scheduled monuments.

Other, larger areas, are designated as areas of archaeological importance. This does not give these areas legal protection but means that you need to apply for an operations notice and allow an investigation to take place before you begin work.

Scheduled Ancient Monuments

The term 'monument' can refer to a range of archaeological sites from prehistoric standings stones and burial mounds to castles and monasteries. More information is available on the english heritage website.

You can find the scheduled ancient monuments in York in Appendix C of the City of York Local Plan.

You need consent for any work that disturbs ground near or on a scheduled ancient monument and results in:

• the demolition or destruction of, or damage to, a scheduled monument;
• removing, repairing, altering or adding to a scheduled monument;
• flooding or tipping on land in, on or under which there is a scheduled monument.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport handles applications for scheduled ancient monument consent, in consultation with English Heritage. The council has no involvement in scheduled ancient monument consent.

You may also need to get planning permission to carry out work. You will not be granted consent or planning permission if your plans adversely affect a scheduled monument or its setting.

Areas of Archaeological Importance

There are seven Areas of Archaeological Importance (AAI's) in York. These are listed in Appendix D of the City of York Local Plan.

If you want to carry out work in one of these areas that disturbs, tips material on or floods the ground, you must complete an operations notice and send it to us. You can download an operations notice on the right hand side of this page. We will validate the notice and send it to the York Archaeological Trust (YAT), who will respond to the notice in one of the following ways:

• that it has no interest in the operation, or
• that it wishes to observe and record the operations (an archaeological watching brief), or
• that it wishes to excavate the site in advance of the operation taking place. In this case the YAT can claim a period of up to four months and two weeks to carry out an excavation. You will not be under any duty to pay for the costs of any esulting archaeological work.

It is an offence to start work within six weeks of submitting the operations notice or to start work within an area of archaeological importance without completing an operations notice. It is also an offence to use a metal detector within an AAI.

Operations notice

You can download an operations notice form from the right of this page.

Complete and post one copy of the completed form to Design, Conservation and Sustainable Development. There is no fee for submitting an operations notice.