Having exhausted its last quarry in East Devon in 2016 – Aggregate Industries is now supplying sand and gravel from Hillhead near Uffculme in Mid Devon. It is Hillhead – with 4 million tonnes already with permission, and a further 8 million tonnes next-door allocated as a Preferred Area in the Devon Minerals Plan – that is now home to AI’s processing plant that until last year could be found at Blackhill near Woodbury. It is Hillhead that has the same type of material – from the Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds – that underlies Straitgate.
Last month, DCC approved a review of mineral planning conditions for Hillhead DCC/3655/2014 – and extended consent for the Houndaller part of the site – the part with the 4 million tonnes – until 2037. Planning consent for Houndaller had expired on 31 December 2018.
Hillhead, as the officer’s report pointed out, has a history of quarrying:
It is understood that [there was] quarrying at Hillhead as early as 1880s and, more recently, a number of mineral planning permissions were granted dating from the 1940s.
You might ask why, therefore, if there is so much material at Hillhead, is there any need for Straitgate? You might ask why, therefore, with the processing plant at Hillhead some 23 miles away from Straitgate, is AI pursuing the site – with all its inherent problems and barely a million tonnes of resource. They’re good questions, for which AI has no cogent answers. Last November, we posted AI’s resurrected plant at Hillhead has enough material nearby to take it beyond 2050. In January, we posted So, Straitgate’s not ‘needed’ until 2021 – says AI – which proves it’s not needed at all, highlighting that:
Aggregate Industries is no longer in any rush to quarry Straitgate Farm – judging by documents lodged last year in support of the company's ROMP application DCC/3655/2014 for Hillhead, an application submitted in 2014 but still not determined. AI’s document says:
Should Straitgate Farm obtain planning permission in 2018, extraction would likely commence in 2021. 2.13
Of course, 2018 has come and gone, and now we’re well into 2019, and AI still shows no sign of submitting the information – substantive information on hydrogeology, traffic, even cattle movements across the Exeter Road – requested by DCC back in 2017. As we pointed out, if AI can do without Straitgate until 2021 – 5 years from when Straitgate was originally planned as a direct replacement for Venn Ottery Quarry – then plainly, as we posted:
the relatively small amount of material from Straitgate – with its inherently high carbon footprint – is clearly not needed at all.
But what calamity would befall AI if Straitgate were not quarried? AI’s ROMP application for Hillhead talks about this. In fact, AI claims that without Straitgate, Hillhead would apparently – forgetting, of course, those 8 million tonnes in the Preferred Area next-door – be restored that much sooner:
In the event that the Straitgate Farm application is refused planning permission, Houndaller material shall continue to be processed at an average rate of 350,000 saleable tpa with extraction ceasing in c.2029. The applicant is willing to accept a condition requiring the restoration of the processing plant site at Hillhead Quarry within two years following the cessation of extraction at Houndaller. 2.16
So, Straitgate is not mission critical to AI’s operations then? Apparently not. For all the aggravation, the loss of a farm, the risk to water supplies to 100 people, 3 farms and a Grade I listed Tudor manor house with mediaeval fishponds, the risk to Exeter Road users from up to 200 HGV movements a day, the risk to wetland habitats in ancient woodland, the risk of flooding to communities downstream, the risk of birdstrike to aircraft on their landing descent to Exeter Airport, the loss of ancient hedgerows and veteran oak trees, habitat for bats and dormice, the loss of Roman and Iron Age remains, the visual impact, for all the CO2 emissions and the 2.5 million HGV miles:
The gravel rich Straitgate Farm mineral would complement the material currently being extracted at Houndaller 2.14
Wow. It will be DCC’s job to weigh up all those points and arrive at a planning balance.
