If flatlining sales figures, planning difficulties and rising energy costs are anything to go by, the business outlook for UK sand and gravel production is not spectacular.
Elsewhere in the world there are other problems, with looming shortages of sand – Germany being the latest country to declare problems:
Germany desperately needs more sand for industry. But a lack of planning foresight, the politics around mining sites and the needs of coastal communities are making the search ever grittier.
Experts are even talking about reaching "peak sand".
In recognition of these difficulties, and the need to move towards a circular economy, more and more construction waste is thankfully being recycled. Only last week, the UK's largest recycling plant for construction and demolition waste opened in West Lothian, which promises to turn 400,000 tonnes of construction, demolition and excavation waste per year into sand and gravel.
The new facility supports the Scottish government’s circular economy strategy ‘Making Things Last’, which aims to secure 70% recycling of construction and demolition waste by 2020.
"This new plant should act as a game-changer for the construction industry, by saving money for our customers and ensuring they can dispose of their construction and demolition waste in a cost-effective and sustainable way."
Devon, meanwhile, is not short of sand and gravel resources. There is, in fact, no current need for any new greenfield sand and gravel quarry sites.
Devon's permitted sand and gravel reserves at the end of 2017 stood at over 6 million tonnes, which provides a landbank of 12 years.
Two thirds of this reserve sits at Hillhead near Uffculme – the new location of AI’s sand and gravel processing plant. The Devon Minerals Plan than runs until 2033 has allocated another 8 million tonnes of sand and gravel resource next door to this plant. In total, that’s enough material for the next 27 years at the current rate of demand.
But Aggregate Industries is not content with that. It wants the resource at Straitgate Farm too.
How much resource is at Straitgate? Somewhere less than a million tonnes, but neither AI nor DCC could tell you exactly, because up-to-date drawings and resource calculations – accommodating recent higher groundwater levels – will not be made available before determination, at least according to AI and the Environment Agency.
AI claims "Sustainability is at the heart of our business", but in reality the company wants to squander the resource at Straitgate in the most unsustainable fashion – embedding 58 climate-unfriendly miles for each processed load prior to onward distribution – preventing the next generation from having any opportunity to benefit from the material in a more sustainable and environmentally conscious manner.
It’s crazy. But that’s the world of Minerals Planning in Devon for you.
