Mr. Terry Allen:

As the museum gets about ten days to look at licences, ten days would have been given. We either got an observation saying it had no objection or we received no reply. In fairness, in most cases we get a reply, whereby the museum gives us some comment or states it has no objection. I cannot say what happened in this case and I would have to check it for the Chairman. That process, however, would have been undertaken. The museum would have seen the licence, as it would have seen previous licenses. This licence is very similar to previous licences, which would have been approved and seen by the museum also. I wrote back to the director and my colleague is giving the Chairman a copy of the letter. He was given an explanation as to what had happened and was assured it was not a precedent for anything else, did not represent any change and was simply a one-off relaxation of the requirement for an archaeologist due to the particular circumstances of the case - as I have outlined - and that there was a lot of knowledge about the artefact.

We must also take into account that the owner has pledged to make this artefact available to a local museum, along with previous lifts from the wreck. We must be conscious that if an archaeologist is required to be present there are costs associated with that. It is a question of being reasonable in the circumstances. In this case I took the view that given what was involved in the circumstances there was not a lot to be gained by the presence of an archaeologist. The temporary loss, as I have explained, of the bridge telegraph is not permanent, hopefully. It would have happened with or without an archaeologist.