Orkney councillors have agreed on how a pot of £40,000 should be divided up between six archaeological investigations in the county.
During a meeting of the council’s Development and Infrastructure committee this morning, members viewed proposals from council officers on how the cash should be split up
This year, the beneficiaries include the world-famous Ness of Brodgar dig and two projects in Rousay.
Each year, Orkney council awards grants for such projects. The report to councillors noted the “excellent value for money” it poses to the council.
During today’s meeting, councillors were told that such sites result in hundreds of thousands of pounds of media coverage for the county.
Half of the £40,000 is spent on projects on the Orkney Mainland, with the other £20,000 ringfenced to help projects on Orkney’s other islands.
Those running the investigations must apply to the council to benefit.
For 2023, the report recommended that the following projects on the Orkney Mainland receive support:
- £9,500 will go to Stenness’s world-renowned Ness of Brodgar excavations.
- £9,500 will go to The Cairns – Windwick Bay Field Project, in South Ronaldsay.
- £1,000 will go to the project “In search of a lost passage tomb: excavations at Blomar, Holm.”
Notably, the Ness of Brodgar dig is entering its penultimate season this year. After the 2024 excavations, the site is to be “infilled” and post-excavation work will commence.
Orkney’s archaeology is ‘cornerstone of tourism industry’
As per today’s report, two projects on the island of Rousay should also be awarded grants.
These are:
- The excavation at the Knowe of Swandro in Rousay will be awarded £4,000
- A project called “Landscapes of Change: Archaeologies of the Rousay Clearances and the Westness estate” will get £10,254
Finally, a project titled “Improving access to Orkney Sites and Monuments Record: Ariel Photographs”, is to be awarded £5,746.
This project is set to take place in both the Orkney mainland and the South Isles. It will improve access to Orkney sites and monuments records.
Each of these projects – aside from the excavations at Blomar – asked for more than is it will be given.
When tallied up the cumulative asks from the projects would have been £80,319 – more than double the council’s budget.
With this in mind, councillor Gillian Skuse asked if the council had considered speaking to applicants and asking them if they would rather that the funding went to just one of Orkney’s archaeology digs, instead of being split between six.
Morag Robertson, economic development officer with the council, said it was policy to allocate it by splitting it between projects.
She also said that if discussions took place, as Mrs Skuse suggested, they would find that the Ness of Brodgar would “swallow up the whole of the budget every year.”
As well as media coverage from the sites, such projects play a major part in attracting tourists to Orkney.
Councillor Lindsay Hall called archaeology “the cornerstone of the county’s tourism industry.”
He added: “If we allow Orkney’s archaeology to just become a few stones and don’t keep improving the access to it, we do ourselves a disservice.”
Today’s decision from the committee will now have to go on to be ratified by full council.
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