Surprise, surprise. Aggregate Industries has yet again failed to meet an agreed extension of the determination date for its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm.
On 18 June, Devon County Council and Aggregate Industries agreed that the period for determination would be extended "from 28th June 2019 to 31st December 2019". It was the 8th such extension granted for this application. This latest extension – like the others – has now been missed, given that the submission of any further information would require at least 30 days of public consultation before the Council’s last DMC meeting of 2019 on 27 November.
Aggregate Industries’ planning application will now enter 2020. That’s worth thinking about.
Aggregate Industries launched its application to quarry Straitgate Farm back in 2015, having started site investigations in earnest in 2011. This of course ignores the planning application and public inquiry in the 1960s.
Some local people have been involved with this affair as far back as 2000; even Brexit is at risk of being done quicker than that.
Aggregate Industries has taken the best part of a decade (half a century, if we don’t ignore the 1960s) to work out how it can get its hands on less than a million tonnes of saleable material. And remember, that’s sand and gravel, not diamonds – no wonder Aggregate Industries is having problems with profitability. If all aggregate producers took that long with their planning applications, there would be no aggregates industry.
Why less than a million saleable tonnes? Because that’s what would be left after processing, and once the base of the proposed quarry has been raised to take account of the elevated groundwater levels recorded in 2018.
You might think there would come a point – after all these years – when someone would say enough is enough. The amount remaining is hardly viable. And remember, AI’s last two quarries in East Devon produced significantly less than expected – and there's every chance Straitgate would too. At nearby Marshbroadmoor:
The original planning application gave a figure of 1.1 million tonnes, but, due to geological faulting, nothing like that amount ever came out... an application was [later] made in 2010 for the bulk of the reserve, some 176,000 tonnes, to be processed at Blackhill.
And given all the delays, the site at Straitgate Farm is clearly not suitable, and with Aggregate Industries’ sand and gravel processing operations now 23 miles away up the M5, clearly not sustainable.
Nevertheless, year after year, Devon County Council keeps granting extensions to this multinational, despite the continued anxiety imposed on the community by this invasive and never-ending proposal.
We know what’s driving Aggregate Industries, but what’s driving the Council?
