Oh dear. Aggregate Industries’ plans to import some 200,000 tonnes of materials that "will consist mainly of subsoils and clays" – as part of its proposal to restore Marshbroadmoor to "areas of mixed woodland" – have come unstuck already. Only last week, we posted about the company’s plans for the sites in AI launches another retrospective planning application.
You would have thought – given that the company has already had airport safeguarding issues with its planning application to quarry nearby Straitgate Farm – that AI would have learnt by now not to propose tree planting on a hill top location directly below the landing path to an international airport.
In 2014, we posted Presumptuous? after AI started planting trees at Straitgate. We said:
Aggregate Industries does not have permission to quarry Straitgate Farm; in fact, the farm is not even in Devon's Minerals Plan. This hasn't stopped AI from starting to mark out where it wants to quarry, with fencing and the planting of tree screens, according to its 'concept plans' - plans not agreed by anyone other than its consultants; not DCC, not the Environment Agency, not Natural England, not Exeter Airport…
And indeed it was presumptuous. Because in 2015, Exeter Airport said:
No trees or hedges must be planted to the west or south of the site. The land in this location already penetrates the OLS and any further penetrations would be unacceptable. Ideally any existing penetrating trees should be removed over time. Any tree and hedge planting should be restricted to the far eastern side of the site and below the 135mAOD contour ensuring trees are not allowed to grow to a height that will cause OLS penetration issues in future years.
Again in 2017 – plainly because AI still hadn’t got the message – Exeter Airport advised:
Tree management and planting should be carried out following the guidance in the attached EDAL tree planting plan to ensure no further penetrations of the Obstacle limitation surfaces.
And so, in 2018, the majority of trees AI had planted at Straitgate – in an effort to provide compensatory habitat for dormice, for all the ancient hedgerows it plans to grub up – were cut down. We posted AI cuts down ‘compensation’ planting; so where does that leave protected species? As we wrote:
It’s a shambles. If we can’t trust AI to do a simple job like managing tree planting in the right place, how can we trust it to dig in the right place, or more specifically for the protection of people’s water supplies, dig to the right depth?
Clearly AI didn’t learn. Its restoration plans for Marshbroadmoor proposes planting areas of woodland higher than 135mAOD, and again Exeter Airport has objected:
The landscaping proposals in this planning application are on ground that is directly below the take-off and climb and approach surfaces for Exeter airport. The land here already penetrates some of the airports safeguarded surfaces which are in place to protect the safe manoeuvring of aircraft in the area and ensure no adverse effects to instrument landing systems.
Any additional tree planting and landscaping works in this area have the potential to further increase the surface penetrations that Exeter Airport already suffers, over time these penetrations should be reduced, and also increase the risk of birdstrike to aircraft that are in a critical phase of flight as they pass over this location either on approach or departure…
A robust Wildlife Hazard Management Plan to include Landscape and Tree maintenance would need to be supplied and approved by Exeter Airport to ensure there is no increase in risk of birdstrike to aircraft and that there would be no further surface penetrations by trees either now or in perpetuity.
Accordingly, Exeter Airport object to the proposal on the grounds of aviation safety.
