On 1st October 2013, the Portable Antiquities Scheme will enter its 17th year of operation. According to the figures of the Kate Clark report by the year 2008-9, it had cost us all 9,780,769 quid to keep it going, since then funding levels have fluctuated a bit, but in rough terms the total comes to 15,161,000 pounds today. Each day the PAS costs everyone 3625 pounds ( 25000 pounds a week, just under three pounds a week per detectorist), but in terms of loss of integrity of the archaeological record, it is costing us, and those who come after us, far far more.
Time for a proper and holistic assessment of the results of this eccentric social experiment, and a change in policy.
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