Aggregate Industries has a number of operations digging up Devon’s mineral resources. This table is from Devon County Council’s most recent Local Aggregate Assessment, for the period 2008-2017:
Although AI has since moved from Blackhill, the company is currently working 4 millions tonnes of sand and gravel at Hillhead – the location to which it would transport any winnings from Straitgate for processing. When that runs out, there’s another 8 million tonnes next to Hillhead that’s been allocated in the Devon Minerals Plan.
Twelve million tonnes goes some way, when AI’s requirement for sand and gravel is in the region of 300,000 tonnes per annum. It’s enough to last it to 2050 and beyond, in fact, enough to last significantly longer if we continue to reduce our dependence on virgin, irreplaceable, unsustainable materials, and use recycled and secondary aggregates instead.
With 30 years' supply next to its newly-reconstructed processing plant, why is AI bothered with Straitgate – a sand and gravel resource with somewhere less than a million tonnes, sitting 23 miles away? It’s a good question, with no rational answer. Apart from 1967, AI first submitted its application for Straitgate back in 2015, and much of the supporting documentation is now older than that. The company still has significant hurdles to surmount and it’s now over two years since any supplementary information was submitted for comment.
Unlike its troubles with Straitgate Farm, AI doesn’t appear to have had any problems securing permissions elsewhere for mineral extraction serving the county in the recent past.
Last year, despite numerous concerns from local residents, particularly about dust, AI won permission for another 600k tonnes at Westleigh, a quarry that produces around 850k tonnes per annum with permission to run to 2046.
The year before that, despite numerous concerns about an AONB and closing a public highway, AI won permission from Cornwall Council for a 10 million tonne quarry extension to 2066 at Greystone, a quarry within the Tamar Valley AONB on the Devon border that produces 300k tonnes per annum.
Whilst AI considers what to do about Straitgate – and given those 30 years of supply elsewhere there’s plainly no need – the company has submitted another planning application in Devon to extract aggregates, 4 million tonnes of secondary aggregates near Plymouth.
In comparison with wrecking an East Devon farm, this application is to work waste material from china clay tips. We have posted about this waste material before, how hundreds of millions of tonnes scar the Devon and Cornwall landscape, how one operator assured us that with so much of this material there was 'no need for any more new quarries'.
This photo, showing the production of secondary aggregates from china clay waste at Lee Moor, is taken from the Devon Minerals Plan.
In recent years, whilst sales of sand and gravel have flatlined, sales of secondary aggregates have increased – as this chart from DCC's LAA shows:
AI wants to deepen the extraction area of Tip T1 from 256m AOD to 228m AOD, to realise 4 million tonnes and "secure the future of the site until 2049/50":
Current sales average 220,000 tonnes a year (130,000 extracted from T1 and 90,000 imported from elsewhere on the Lee Moor complex) and this will continue. 3.6
Based on the current sales the site has an average of 40 to 45 HGVs a day 3.12
Dartmoor National Park is some 600m to the east of the site. The village of Wotter is some 340m to the west. AI claims:
The site has operated in this manner since permission was granted in 2009 with no unacceptable impacts on the environment or local communities and it is proposed that the future operations will continue in the same manner. 1.3
Locals would beg to differ, as AI’s very own document makes clear:
A short presentation was given to Shaugh Prior Parish Council on the 3rd July 2019 where the main concerns raised were recent dust impacts on Wotter and HGV traffic. 1.11
In respect of the recent dust issues at Wotter this was due to some recent very strong east winds and the companies operating on the Lee Moor site had responded by providing additional water bowsers. AIUK are also in the process of installing a new dust suppression system on their haul road. Comments on traffic related to speed of vehicles and the use of the Cadover Bridge Road to Yelverton. All HGV drivers using the application site receive an induction on the approved routes for HGVs, of which this is one, and drivers have been reminded to drive with care and attention to other road users. 1.14
South Hams District Council would beg to differ too. Its Environmental Health Response objects "on the grounds of inadequate information and potential unacceptable impacts on neighbouring amenity", after:
complaints that have occurred over the years regarding dust in the vicinity of the site
AI’s working of secondary aggregates is certainly a more sustainable source of minerals, but clearly the company is up to its old tricks again, trying to discount the impacts on local people.
