We all know that Aggregate Industries' proposal to haul as-dug sand and gravel 23 miles from Straitgate Farm to Uffculme to be processed makes no sense.
The funny thing is, AI has been saying the same thing for years.
We have accumulated a stack of notes from previous meetings and phone calls; here are a couple of things that AI representatives have told us in the past:
In 2012: 'AI don’t want to move to Uffculme because it’s too far away from the target market'
In 2013: 'AI won’t consider Uffculme for processing [Straitgate material]; it's too far and not economic'
In fact, in 2015, these views were even formalised in AI’s last planning application for Straitgate:
So what makes Uffculme an acceptable and sustainable place to process material from Straitgate now? Has AI's target market moved? Have the economics changed? Is the massively greater amount of CO2 now acceptable? No, of course not. Having run out of options, AI is now desperate.
