This whole thing is just an EH-sponsored sham. Ill-conceived and ill-executed (the link to the online questionnaire promised in April/May still was not working yesterday). This whole thing looks so amateurish.
It is ill-conceived because so far nobody has identified exactly WHAT it is looking at, everything and nothing it seems. There is more (much more) to illegal metal detecting than blokes trespassing on a farmer's fields by night (which is what the titular "nighthawks" are usually conceived as doing). For example metal detecting in Scotland without reporting finds. Scotland will be included in the survey, what are the bets on the non-reporting of finds there being treated in any detail as part of a pattern of illegal detecting? What happened to "detecting on scheduled sites"? Its not in the latest info from Oxford, though was intended by EH to be in the original scheme. Has it been cut out, or are Oxford misrepresenting what it is they were commissioned to look at?
Instead of entrusting this to an archaeological unit, this should have been commissioned from somebody like the PAS but certainly with an FLO seconded to heading it. Only they have the experience of this milieu to get and report reliable information about it. An FLO would I think have been from several points of view the ideal person to run this survey.
The online questionnaire seems an ideal opportunity for the enmity between detectorists themselves to find outlet in various damaging accusations and counter accusations. In addition, already the detecting forums are full of suggestions that "certain rabid individuals" will log on to the online survey under different names from different computers with made-up reports of damage to artificially boost figures. They seem to be girding themselves already for dismissing the conclusions of the report.
I think the result will be the complete opposite, I think that many people with this sort of information (ie metal detectorists and their supporters) are NOT going to come forward as they will perceive a high percentage of sites being reported as damaged by illegal detecting will lead to calls for better legislative protection, and thus restrictions on "the hobby".
It is my opinion that this "survey" will not reveal anything like the real extent of illegal detecting, the government will have their nice figures that "its not really a problem" and can go on doing nothing to protect the archaeological heritage from being turned into somebody's collectables.
Do HMG collect statistics on the scale of any other form of illegal activity through an online 'denunciation' questionnaire? TV licence dodging, dole fraud, child abuse, drink driving? As I said, it all smacks of gross amateurism at this stage of the proceedings.
Paul Barford
