It will hardly come as a surprise to regular readers to learn that Aggregate Industries has failed to meet the extended determination date agreed by the company with DCC last year.
More than seven years have now passed since AI’s consultants first started crawling all over Straitgate Farm in preparation for plans to quarry the site.
Almost four years have passed since AI’s initial planning application.
The determination date for the resubmitted application has been extended six times.
And yet, AI is plainly still having difficulty putting together the documentation requested by DCC some 18 months ago – in answer to a number of fundamental questions.
In November, it was agreed by DCC and AI to extend the determination date to 31 March 2019. This date – like many before – has now been missed, given that the submission of any further information would require 30 days of public consultation before the next DMC meeting of 20 March.
What are we to make of AI’s lack of enthusiasm to submit more information? What on earth can be causing the company so many problems?
Is it the cattle crossing issues – first raised almost 2 years ago?
Is it the rich assortment of hydrogeological issues – including the failure of AI’s groundwater model?
Is it the request for revised plans – referred to in answer to a letter written by Sir Hugo Swire MP to the Chief Executive of the EA?
Devon County Council have written to Aggregate Industries requesting them to submit revised plans showing the extent of the working area, taking into account the elevated groundwater levels recorded in March and April 2018, prior to determining the planning application.
Is it the road junction issues – and damage to third party property?
Is it the involvement of an increasing numbers of lawyers – this being just the latest – raising substantive issues against AI’s plans?
Or is it the dawning realisation that Straitgate Farm – with its ever-decreasing level of sand and gravel resource – sits an uneconomic, unsustainable, climate-damaging 23 miles away from AI’s newly-erected processing plant in Mid Devon – where the company already has enough of the same material to last it to 2050 and beyond?
Clearly, there are problems. Otherwise AI would be looking to tear up the ancient hedgerows and farmland by now – not seeking a 7th extension to the determination date.
Locals have now been blighted by the threat of this development for more than seven years – remember the hundreds of people who piled into West Hill Village Hall in 2012 to bend the ear of DCC’s Minerals Officer? Some people have been blighted by the threat of a quarry at Straitgate for longer than that.
AI’s application has now been lifeless for 18 months. It’s about time AI put up or shut up.
