The impact on water supplies is one of the most contentious aspects of the proposal by Aggregate Industries to quarry Straitgate Farm.
Perhaps the Environment Agency no longer cares whether this planning application is built on truth, or whether people lose their water supplies, or whether heritage features are ruined, or whether wetland habitats in ancient woodlands are destroyed. But if the EA had bothered to wait for the Professor’s advice – advice from an independent expert, author of scientific papers and hydrogeology textbooks, and now winner of the prestigious Whitaker Medal "in recognition of an outstanding contribution to hydrogeology" – rather than rushing to accept the advice of a say-anything cement conglomerate, they would have discovered that Woods’ reply was in fact inaccurate. That’s covered in Part 1 above.
However, a word of warning: It might shock readers to learn that the Environment Agency’s technical position on this application – and therefore Devon County Council’s position, because it blindly follows – for the whole groundwater environment: the private water supplies to businesses and 100 people, the wetland habitats in ancient woodlands, the listed fishponds – is based on the views of just one person at the Agency. Yep, JUST ONE.
Even when concerns have been sent through legal channels to the Area Director for Devon, Cornwall & Isles of Scilly, a Freedom of Information request has now revealed that it has been this one person who has provided all the arguments for the response, who has dismissed the views of a Professor in Hydrogeology, who has sided with the incorrect views of Aggregate Industries’ consultants. When Prof Brassington says "the EA has not recognized that the hydrogeology and groundwater resources of this area are very sensitive and fragile", it is this one person at the Agency who is both judge and jury.
Concerned? We should be. What checks and balances are made on the views of this one person? Why is this one person so entrenched in their position? Why has this one person dismissed all of the ever-increasing catalogue of contradictory evidence put before them? Why, given all the higher water levels, does this one person not want Aggregate Industries to recalculate the MWWT, the base of any quarry, before determination? Why are a number of the Environment Agency’s views beginning to look perverse?
Is it because they rushed to make a decision on this proposal before fully thinking things through? Is it because they naively trusted everything delivered to them by Aggregate Industries and its consultants – wild fantasy stuff, some with errors the height of houses? Is it because they are inexperienced at dealing with this sort of proposal? Is it because changing direction now would be embarrassing? Is it because no ladder could ever be big enough to climb down?
Answers on a postcard.
