Aggregate Industries has again failed to meet an agreed extension of the determination date for its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm.
Nothing has changed – at least publicly – since the last extension was agreed.
In February, we posted Who’d have thought it? Decision on Straitgate application delayed again, and in March, Straitgate determination date extended for 7th time, saying:
Devon County Council has agreed yet another extension with Aggregate Industries for the period for determination of its Straitgate application - the seventh - this time from 31 March to 28 June 2019.
What has been achieved since the last extension, or the one before, or before that?
Who knows? DCC is still awaiting information it requested from AI some 18 months ago.
This latest extension date – like the many before – has now been missed, given that the submission of any further information would require at least 30 days of public consultation before DCC’s next DMC meeting of 5 June.
Local people – who have had this threat of major development in the open countryside hanging over their lives for years – will draw their own conclusions from these continual delays. Plainly DCC is beyond caring, despite knowing that:
Is it acceptable to have more than one agreement to extend the time for determination?
Yes, if agreed by all parties, but good practice would be to make sure the first, agreed new target date was realistic given the work to be done, so a further agreement wouldn't be necessary.
Clearly, in the case of AI’s applications to quarry Straitgate, "good practice" went out the window long ago. Incredibly, even for this charade, DCC and AI will now be looking to agree their 8th extension to the determination date.
The last batch of information from AI – the Regulation 22 responses, which raised even more questions – was supplied to DCC almost 2 years ago. AI’s initial application went live almost 4 years ago.
Is there any life left in AI’s proposal to haul material millions of miles across Devon, contrary to Objective 1 of the Devon Minerals Plan which aims to:
secure a spatial pattern of mineral development that delivers the essential resources to markets within and outside Devon while minimising transportation by road and generation of greenhouse gases
or – in this newly climate-conscious era we thankfully, at last, find ourselves in, with David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion et al. shaming our politicians into calling a climate emergency and the CCC calling for net-zero emissions by 2050 – has AI’s polluting and unsustainable application "ceased to be"? Is it "pushing up the daisies"? Is it in fact an ex-application? Or would AI representatives, on the contrary, remind us of its "beautiful plumage" (in this case a relatively small pile of sand and gravel) and have us believe "It’s not dead, it’s resting"?
