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So are you suggesting A(ER)A as AREA in reverse? I'd be disappointed if the final goal were not a hare, or a jewel, or something like that.

That wouldn't be the goal - but if the bracketed phrase is understood to refer only to that one word, the whole sentence can be interpreted in another way.

You've spotted something that I've missed. I'm going to backtrack to Ampthill and see what I can see by looking around there.

The SA lies between a nearby motorway and the County Town (jumbled)

I don't think *BEDFORD is quite there; there aren't enough Ds.

My grid is sitting in front of me ready to be posted at lunchtime and I still haven't decided what to highlight.

FLITTON is in there jumbled, which is close to Ampthill - probably another red herring though.

My eureka momemt of the day was to look for spelled out letters i.e.

AITCHAARE

or

AITCH
A
AR
E

Ah well, back to the asylum.

The solution is out. Well done to anyone who read the setter's mind and highlighted the preamble!!

Not me. I discounted that solution early on as being unlikely/unfair.

I agree, djawhufc. We are supposed to submit our solutions with the preamble cut off, so there should have been a hint that the buried treasure was in the preamble rather than in the grid, not just that "this was the only place where the letters appeared consecutively in a straight line", as the setter points out in the solution notes on the listenercrossword.com website (anyway, what about the space between the "h" and the "are" in "search area" - are the four letters really consecutive?).

I'll rate this puzzle as a good idea let down by the last bit of the endgame.