We posted back in April that AI’s Blackhill processing plant re-emerges at Hillhead, 23 miles away from Straitgate. The plant has progressed since then:
It is this plant that Aggregate Industries wants to use to process material from Straitgate. AI had wanted to be importing material from Straitgate by now, as it made clear in its Regulation 22 response last year:
the plant will be installed and operational by mid-late 2018... when, subject to planning, mineral would begin to be imported from Straitgate Farm into Hillhead Quarry.
But then AI makes a lot of claims. In 2016, AI "was merrily talking about wanting to start earthworks at Straitgate Farm in the Spring/Summer of [2017]". And look how successful that was.
More than 100,000 truck journeys would be needed to transport Straitgate's as-dug spoils; 20% of each and every load – effectively 20,000 truck journeys – would be for silt, a waste material.
So, at a time when other companies are investing in rail freight – "taking 1,500 truck journeys off the road each year" –
– AI’s plans for Straitgate would instead add 10,000 truck journeys a year. Brilliant.
What reason does AI give for needing Straitgate's material, when there's already 4 million tonnes of sand and gravel with permission next door to this plant at Houndaller, and 8 million tonnes at nearby Penslade? AI says that that:
The gravel content [at Straitgate] is important as it is capable of producing a 57 PSV aggregate suitable for road surfacing. 5.4.5
because at Houndaller:
... there is little or no crushable gravel to produce a 57 PSV aggregate. 3.9.2
If you believe AI – and why would you after such a catalogue of fiction – and if you ignore the ever-increasing stockpiles of unprocessed quartzite pebbles at Houndaller – the problem with the company's argument is that it ignores the effective mileage that would be embodied in each tonne of high PSV material from Straitgate. We have posted about this before, how each 28.5 tonne load of high PSV material from Straitgate would necessitate a staggeringly unsustainable 417 miles of transportation for production, BEFORE any onward delivery. In other words, high PSV material from Straitgate would have to travel over 3x the return-trip distance of material from Greystone, an AI quarry in Cornwall also with high PSV material.
The long and the short of it is that AI's resurrected plant has enough material in the Hillhead area alone to keep it going for 30 or 40 years or more, without even thinking about material from Straitgate.
