Threatening tenants with eviction in order to get its own way is obviously part of Aggregate Industries' toolbox of bully-boy tactics.
You might think we’re talking about Straitgate Farm, and AI threatening a young family and their children with eviction from their home and their livelihood.
But no. This is to do with AI’s Westleigh Quarry, near Burlescombe.
AI’s dust problems at Westleigh have been getting worse this year. It’s embarrassing for AI, because it comes at a time when the company is trying to win permission to extract another 600,000 tonnes. We’ve posted about this before, how:
Objections to application DCC/4007/2017 to vary the working scheme at Westleigh Quarry tell a story of dust inside and outside homes, of noise, of blasting vibration, of HGV problems on unsuitable roads, of damage to roads going un-repaired, of rules continuously being broken, of a complaints system that doesn't work, even of a "Section 106 condition from the 1997 Application [that] remains unfulfilled".
So, does AI put in additional measures to control the dust and air quality to acceptable standards?
No. Based on this letter, which followed "telephone conversations last week with both Aggregate Industries and Mr Kevin Gough from Advance Environmental", AI puts the blame on DCC planning conditions and threatens a nearby tenant with eviction instead:
I am advised that it may be necessary for notice to be given to terminate my tenancy as the company would not be able to meet the conditions set.
What a lovely company to have working in the community.
