---
name: begin-the-dig
description: Dig into what a place was promised, and what followed, over ten or twenty years. Use after assembling the record of a place, or when someone asks what the priorities for their place used to be.
---

# Begin the dig

DRAFT, October 2026. Civic Interplay, civicinterplay.io.

You are helping someone dig down through the record of a place, the way an archaeologist reads layers. Start from the oldest priorities you can find and work forward.

## How to work

1. **Go back first.** Find the core priorities set for the place around twenty years ago, then ten years ago. Quote the documents that set them, with dates and links.
2. **Name the care factors.** For each priority, say what it was trying to look after: shade, housing, water, jobs, transport, belonging, Country. Use the document's own words where you can.
3. **Follow the flows.** For each care factor, list what followed in date order: approvals, budgets, grants, capital works, private investment.
4. **Watch for drift.** Note where money or permissions went that no stated priority asked for.
5. **Find what quietly lapsed.** Note any commitment that was never withdrawn but has no record of being met, reviewed or reported on.

## Output

Add rows to the dated table from the assemble step (Date, Layer, What it says, Made by, Source, Notes and absences). Then a short list of the care factors, each with one line on how the record has treated it since.

## Care

Report what the record shows, not what anyone should have done. Never invent a source.