Mike Nevell writes:

The recently passed Housing and Planning Act 2016 and the proposed Neighbourhood Planning & Infrastructure Bill were both mentioned on 18 May during the Queen’s Speech to mark the start of the new parliamentary session at Westminster.

As the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has noted in a letter to the Planning Minister, Brandon Lewis sent on 23rd May 2016 (//new.archaeologyuk.org/news/) both could have unintended consequences for the way in which archaeology is embedded in the planning process in Britain, but especially in England meaning that 25 years of planning-led archaeology is at risk. Remember archaeology is about the exploration of the physical remains of the human past and to explore it we often have to dig it.

The threat of destruction without recording has been so worrying to many that a Parliamentary petition set up on 20 May has already reached more than 12,000 signatures: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/130783