My name is Alistair Byford-Bates and I am the new Historic Environment Fisheries Liaison Officer. I share my time between the Coastal & Marine department at Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury and the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority in Shoreham. My role is to relaunch and develop the Fishing Industries Protocol for Archaeological Discoveries, FIPAD for short.
I finished my MSc in Applied Sciences at Bournemouth University in 2012, having previously read for a BSc in Forensic and Archaeological Sciences there. Though formally a dairy farmer I have been a keen diver, instructor and mixed gas diver; participating in the Nautical Archaeological Society's training programme since 1994. Since leaving university I have worked in commercial archaeology on a range of different sites including Roman villa complexes, post-medieval cemeteries and urban sites.
In my first week of a steep learning curve I have jumped in a flooded quarry and righted life rafts as part of my personal survival training, had my HSE diving medical booked, done my induction to Wessex Archaeology, learnt how to process finds reported through the BMAPA and ORPAD protocols and started updating the literature and processes for the implementation of FIPAD. I have also written a short article on my role for Dredged Up, the bi-annual newsletter for the Marine Aggregate Industry. Having got married at the end of January, 2016 is starting to look like a busy year with lots of firsts and new things for me in the next few months.
My next step is to meet with local FIPAD contacts and start a meet and greet programme with the fishermen of Sussex, followed up by training and awareness courses. The outcome will hopefully be lots of new sites and artefacts reported, the recording of legacy finds, leading to the expansion of the Historic Environment Record and connecting the fishermen and the local communities to their shared heritage of the sea.
This two year project and post has been supported by a grant from the