Last month, we asked Is there any life left in AI’s application to quarry Straitgate, or is it just "resting"? Now, whether there's any life or not, Devon County Council and Aggregate Industries have agreed yet another extension for determining the planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm, this time "from 28th June 2019 to 31st December 2019".
For those who have lost count, it’s the 8th such extension – if we ignore the company's first application for Straitgate back in 2015, that had to be withdrawn in 2016 after AI forgot to ask permission from a landowner whose field was to be used for site access.
Of course, as with the other extensions, there’s been no visible progress from AI since the last extension.
So, what on earth can AI be finding so difficult – that requires so much time, and so many extensions??
Is it the hydrogeology, and the impact AI’s plans would have on private water supplies and Grade I Cadhay? Is it Professor Brassington’s recent report concluding that 'ANY quarrying at Straitgate would cause problems', a report which has prompted new objections, including this one?
Is it legal issues and Section 106s? Is it that AI’s legal assurances for alternative water supplies are "unfit for purpose"?
Is it proposing what must be the UK’s most ridiculous and unsustainable quarry scheme – to haul as-dug material 23 miles away for processing – at a time of increasing concern and awareness about our climate emergency?
Is it – with a newly rebuilt plant at Hillhead together with 4 million tonnes of permitted sand and gravel reserves next door – the slow realisation that AI doesn’t really need the ever-shrinking resource at Straitgate after all?
Is it that LafargeHolcim bean-counters have finally cottoned on, that – with a working scheme that (according to Prof Brassington) "will not work in practice", with associated infrastructure, extensive archaeological investigations, restoration, legal agreements, and multi-million-mile haulage costs – Straitgate Farm is never going to be worth it?
Or is the company just sitting on its hands, twiddling its thumbs, stringing DCC along, waiting for the Brexit mayhem and associated economic uncertainty to pass? As if that's going to happen anytime soon.
It’s now over 4 years since AI’s application for Straitgate went live, and almost 2 years since any substantive information was supplied by the company.
In 2015, AI was in a rush to quarry Straitgate. In 2017, AI was in a rush to quarry Straitgate. Now, in 2019, having kicked the can down the road for another 6 months, AI is plainly coping quite well without Straitgate's relatively small amount of sand and gravel after all.
