Aggregate Industries’ planning application for Straitgate Farm – the one that’s been in a lifeless zombie state for the last 12 months or so – will not now be determined before 2019.
The application has been dogged by delays, over and over and over again. It has now been delayed again. For those that have lost count – it’s the 6th time the current application has been delayed; posts on previous delays can be found here, here, here, here and here. Bear in mind, however, that we are now on AI’s second application in recent times for Straitgate, the first being lodged back in 2015. That was dogged by delays too, even after 3 years or more of preparatory work. And all this on top of the years of palaver over the Minerals Plan – and the delays caused by AI trying to show the site was deliverable.
Readers following this long and tortuous journey/farce/pantomime/comedy/travesty [select your preferred description or add your own] will surely think by now that AI must be utterly incompetent. Running planning applications for mineral extraction is a core part of AI’s business, but, based on the company’s performance with Straitgate, you wonder whether they'd have difficulty running a bath.
However, to say that AI must be some sort of Micky Mouse operation would be a grave injustice to cartoon characters. Because, whilst other operators win permissions for multi-million tonne quarries on unallocated sites, AI continues to mess around with this sub-million tonne site – a site where the company’s maximum water table model is wrong by up to 2.8m – a site where other predictions for groundwater levels have errors the height of houses – a site that would involve an unorthodox, untried, untested seasonal working scheme (the architect of which has now left the company) risking the drinking water supplies of more than 100 people – a site that would entail off-site processing some 23 miles away – a site that would require a polluting multi-million-mile haulage plan when, as the IPCC warns, we have just 12 years left to stem catastrophic climate change.
And all this from a company that has already chopped down much of its 'compensation' planting – because it was planted in the wrong place; all this from a company that has now put a stop to public scrutiny of groundwater data from the site – with the obvious implication that it now has something to hide; all this from a company that has a record of not adhering to water monitoring S106 agreements; all this from a company that over the years has had no problem supplying local people, the Environment Agency and DCC with a catalogue of fiction.
We could go on, but you get the idea.
Why has determination now been pushed into 2019? Back in July, AI agreed its fifth extension with DCC, extending the period for determination to 31 December 2018. The last DMC meeting of 2018 is scheduled for 28 November. The company has now missed this, given that the submission of any further information will require public consultation. The first DMC meeting of 2019 is 30 January.
Again, there’s little evidence that anything has progressed during this latest extension period. According to Cllr John Hart, in his letter to MP Sir Hugo Swire of 21 September 2018, DCC is still awaiting information on hydrogeology, flooding, working practices, ecology and a range of transport matters, including "the cattle crossing issue." Readers may remember that we first posted about Bovine movements in April 2017, having previously raised the problem in our response of 30 March 2017. This link gives the story to date. We warned of More delays to come, but AI has already had a staggering 18 months to resolve this matter. How much more time will it need?
Meanwhile, as AI personnel come and go, the Council continues to agree extension after extension to this zombie application, apparently giving no thought to the fact that "extensions of time should really be the exception", apparently giving no thought for the community and businesses stuck in limbo under the shadow of AI’s ridiculous and unsustainable plans.
