Aggregate Industries held a Public Exhibition in Ottery St Mary yesterday to showcase its plans for Straitgate Farm. Here are photographs of some of the exhibition boards; others are in the posts below.
A few observations:
The number of people who signed AI's register of attendance - and not everyone did - totalled around 70; many of the comments left would have been on road safety issues.
Amazingly, for a quarry that would entail extensive preliminary work, a 2.5 million mile haulage plan, and a resource of potentially less than a million tonnes, AI has not yet costed the project! A young graduate has now been given the task.
In the space of a week or so, AI's plans have changed again; see how they have grown since the glossy leaflets.
AI says it will be submitting a planning application around the middle of December. The company would be looking for determination by the summer, and to be on site at Straitgate towards the autumn. Mobile plant will be installed at Hillhead in the new year. AI want to be transporting material from Straitgate to Uffculme by the beginning of 2018, by which time permanent processing plant is expected to be installed.
And why was Blackhill on Woodbury Common dropped? As we said all along, AI could not demonstrate the exceptional circumstances needed to operate in the AONB; the planning application to transport Hillhead material to Blackhill demonstrated that nutrients would have also been an issue.
