Last year AI lost another CEO. At the time we said:
During the time that AI has been trying to get its act together in East Devon – to gain permission to butcher a successful farm and risk water supplies for more than 100 people for the sake of a relatively small amount of sand and gravel that could only be processed off-site 23 miles away – the company has gone through three CEOs, and will now be looking for its fourth. Is this simply an indication of how long the Straitgate Farm fiasco has been staggering on, or an indication of deeper problems?
The previous year, Aggregate Industries' parent LafargeHolcim also lost its CEO – after he was charged over allegations of colluding with terrorists in Syria; charges that were only dropped last month.
But it’s not just CEOs.
Over the many years that all this has been rumbling on, it’s hardly surprising that some of the players behind the Straitgate 'project' have moved on. We’ve posted about some of them before, here and here:
We suggested "he should have a good look at what his company is trying to get away with at Straitgate Farm". Perhaps he did. Today it’s been announced he’s moving to Breedon.
The Regional Director who had been overseeing the Straitgate project ever since we’ve been involved was replaced last year. At the same time, the Estates Manager responsible for Straitgate also moved to pastures new.
The person at the Environment Agency who knew most about Straitgate – who over the years had been concerned that a minimum safeguard of 1m should be left unquarried above the maximum water table – also left in 2017, having been with the agency some 29 years.
But what is perhaps even more noteworthy is that two of the leading protagonists behind the most contentious and complicated part of the application – hydrogeology – have also both now moved on. One went last year – AI’s head geologist – and the other – a Technical Director at consultants Amec Foster Wheeler (now Wood) – left in February. Dr Tim Haines was the name that has appeared at the bottom of AI’s water reports since 2015. He was also the person who defended AI’s scheme at the last public exhibition – the scheme to dig down to the maximum water table, leaving a 0m unquarried safeguard, even though with only 6 maximum data points across some 55 acres he could only guesstimate where that level might be – telling local people what the chance was they would lose their water supply:
He was explaining how there was a chance, a small chance in his view, 1 in 20 if pushed to put a number on it, that people currently relying on springs and wells for their drinking water would suffer subsequent problems with their supply if AI's quarry plans were to go ahead.
How central were both of these people to AI's plans for Straitgate? Look who championed AI’s madcap seasonal working scheme at this meeting with the EA in 2017:
TH explained it was a composite taken using the maximum levels form 2013-14 at each piezometer and using elevations of springs. Because the extremely wet period of 2013-14 was used the maximum level is higher than one that would be derived if more recent groundwater levels were used and therefore can be considered to be conservative.
In 2018, that prediction – "considered to be conservative" – failed in four locations.
Both of these key players at AI and AFW are no longer with their respective companies. Telling, or just coincidence? Whichever, perhaps their replacements will realise what a lunatic proposal this really is.
