9 out of 10 detecting finds in Britain being lost to science

Both PAS and Heritage Action have long assumed there are about 8,000 licit detectorists in England and Wales, but Sam Hardy of UCL (Heritage Action: 'A second bombshell for Britain from Dr Sam Hardy!', April 3rd 2017),

has concluded there are 24,300, three times more. If so, our Erosion Counter is massively understated and the 72,000 finds recorded by PAS each year is a very low proportion of what is found with 9 out of 10 detecting finds in Britain being lost to science. It is to be hoped that a copy of his paper has found its way to the All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group. We hope that something else will find its way to them as well: we intend to add the following to our Erosion Counter, some revised figures based on Dr Hardy’s estimate of detectorist numbers. 

that text would read:

Based on Dr Sam Hardy’s estimate, a running total of the number of recordable archaeological artefacts removed from the fields of England and Wales by metal detectorists (92% without being reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme). Total per day: 2,385 So far this year: 216,500 Since the start of the Portable Antiquities Scheme: 17,664,000 Total since 1975: 38,250,000

I would ssay that if anyone supporting the PAS wants to disagree with that. let them produce their own figures and show how they were obtained.