The Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) was introduced in April 2002, initially as a two year pilot scheme, to provide funds to tackle a wide range of problems in areas affected by aggregates extraction. For the purposes of the levy aggregate is defined as: “rock, gravel or sand, together with whatever substances are incorporated in the rock, gravel or sand or naturally occur mixed with it.”
English Heritage, along with English Nature and the Countryside Agency, is a major distributor of the fund on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The core objective of the English Heritage ALSF Programme is to reduce the impact on the historic environment of aggregate extraction, both terrestrial and marine. It will focus on the following main areas:
- developing the capacity to manage aggregate extraction landscapes in the future.
- reducing the physical impacts of current extraction where these lie beyond current planning controls and the normal obligations placed on minerals operators
- addressing the effects of old mineral planning permissions
- promoting understanding of the conservation issues arising from the impacts of aggregates extraction on the historic environment
- delivering to public and professional audiences the full benefits of knowledge gained through past work in advance of aggregates extraction
The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is currently undertaking an English Heritage backed project to disseminate Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund information on the web. The aim of the project is to disseminate and secure for the long term a key set of research and management documents and datasets produced for English Heritage by a wide range of ALSF funded projects.
The overall aim of the ADS is to collect, describe, catalogue, preserve, and provide user support for digital resources that are created as a product of archaeological research.
There are a number of professional and academic reasons why it is considered worthwhile to attempt to secure these existing digital resources. The following are amongst the most important:
- Professional obligation and public access: There is a strong case that material created as part of the archive from archaeological projects funded by EH with public money should be curated in a secure location and made accessible both to the archaeological community and, where appropriate, to a wider public.
- Academic merit: Building upon the above it has been widely recognized that the full potential of many arhcaeological grey literature reports is not realized due to the basic problems of locating and gaining adequate access to the material. By making digital information available online, and at a relatively low cost, the problem of locating ephemeral publications can be greatly reduced and much greater benefit accrued from the considerable resources that have been put into collecting the information in the first place.
- Enhancing the reports: By use of web-enabled technologies it is possible to disseminate digital research data in ways that add value and offer additional re-use capabilities beyond those of traditional publication monographs or archives.
