BBC News "The best places in England for unearthing lost treasure"

PAS outreach at its sorry zenith: Laurence Cawley, 'The best places in England for unearthing lost treasure', BBC News

Map of "Treasure" reports

 Research by the BBC [probably on the PAS database PMB] has revealed Norfolk as the best spot for treasure hunters. [...] Of all the treasures found in the ground, fewer than 5% are discovered by professional archaeologists. More than 90% are unearthed by amateur treasure hunters armed with metal detectors [...] one county in England boasts more treasure finds each year than Herefordshire, Buckinghamshire and North Yorkshire combined: Norfolk. Coroner figures (treasure is declared such by coroners) for the past three years reveal the county has on average 116 treasure finds a year, followed by Essex with 71, Suffolk with 65 and Lincolnshire with 59. Coventry, Bristol and the City of York, on the other hand, have not had a single treasure declaration in three years.

Incredibly, members of the "Learning, Volunteers and Audiences PAS" took part in the creation of this text. It really does not show.

The high number of treasure reports from Norfolk indicates the number of people taking stuff out of the ground guided by metal detectors, but what is ironic is that it is precisely Norfolk which is about to lose its PAS, so (as Lorna Richardson is retweeted as saying) "we don't need more metal detecting to be encouraged [there]".