Sir,

I read that the Special needs school, currently at New barnfield, is now going to be relocated to the former Howe Dell School playing field further to two archaeological digs last year. This move is intended to pave the way for the building of the proposed incinerator at the New Barnfield. But it is the County Council who are acting as' judge and jury' over these proceedings. It is they who want the incinerator built in Hatfield and they who decide, in this case, if the artefacts, both Roman and pre-Roman, found by the archaeologists are important enough to stop the school relocating. 

I happen to live close to where the dig took place and chatted to the people investigating the site. It was clear that the field was once given over to specialist farming, as evidenced by the long, neat rows of cultivation trenches to grow grapes or olives. As you wrote previously, the ex playing field farmed area would have been just a part of a larger farmed area. One archaeologist told me that they would expect a settlement of some description to have been nearby. Although one wasn't found, I wonder if the County Council would have stopped the relocation of the school if something had been found?

Regards, Alan D