PAS Loses Sight of One of its FLOs

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Britain's Portable Antiquities Scheme has some problems with artefact hunters who cannot produce a grid reference which pinpoints the findspot of an artefact they have brought in for recording. It claims some success when it can get a six-figure national grid reference, though have never been terribly clear with the public (or in their own minds really I suppose) whether that is to the accuracy of a "hundred square metres" or a "hundred metres square". So its not very surprising I suppose that they cannot even locate one of their own offices on a map with any accuracy. Imagine being a member of the public clutching an exciting find you've just made and on your Blackberry trying to find the Essex FLO using the map given on the PAS website... a hopeless task. What is actually at the spot indicated is a utility building by the boating lake outside the Roman walls. The Museum Resource Centre is some 215 metres to the south. The FLO's office looks out onto the castle and municipal flower gardens, not the cricket pitch and bowling green.

UPDATE 27th July 2011: It seems from the PAS website tonight that there is no Essex FLO any more, the contact details have GONE. According to the web, Laura McLean is no more. "Portable Antiquities" has also been reading several other posts tonight, and I thought he said he'd never read this blog again.

UPDATE 8 July 2011: She's back again in all her glory. But the arrow's not been moved. Waste of time pointing anything out to the Bloomsbury Bunch.
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