We’ve posted about Aggregate Industries' troubles at Westleigh Quarry - the problems with dust, the problems with HGVs, the impact on the village of Burlescombe.
Only last month, DCC’s DMC committee spent less than half an hour nodding through an extension giving AI another 600k tonnes at Westleigh – in the face of numerous concerns from local residents.
What do we get this month? A press release from AI crowing:
As part of its commitment to positively contributing to the communities around its sites, Aggregate Industries has gifted three information boards to the residents of Burlescombe...
Residents will be thrilled; a few hundred pounds on marketing boards in return for their all suffering.
But then it’s no more than we should expect from this subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, the Swiss-French cement multinational. Last year, AI – a company with sales in the region of £1,200,000,000 – donated just £37k to the communities it impacts, together with £12k of materials; in other words £0.00004 for every £1 of material sold.
To put that £37k in context, here's what the executives of LafargeHolcim paid themselves in 2017:
