Planning applications for Straitgate have blighted the surrounding community on and off since 1967.
As the Background page of this blog notes, we first became involved in March 2000. Since then, local people have had to contend with two mineral plans, two public inquiries, and two planning applications.
Twenty years on, Aggregate Industries’ plans for Straitgate continue to blight lives in the local area.
Lafarge – part of LafargeHolcim, parent company of Aggregate Industries – has a history of blighting communities for years on end. We refer to a long running battle that took place in Scotland – documented in great detail by activist Alastair Macintosh, which we have gratefully relied upon for the photo and summary below.
It all started in March 1991, when a planning application was submitted to the Western Isles Island Council by Redland Aggregates for a quarry at Roineabhal, a hill near the settlement of Lingerbay on the Isle of Harris.
In June 1993, the Council was minded to grant planning permission, but the application was called-in for determination by the Secretary of State. A public inquiry took place between October 1994 and June 1995 – the longest in Scottish planning history – with the report not delivered until April 1999.
In December 1997, meanwhile, Redland was taken over by Lafarge.
In 2000, Lafarge applied for a judicial review, complaining that the delay had violated its human rights. The court of session ruled the delay was of "scandalous proportions".
In November 2000, however, the Scottish Executive rejected the Reporter's delayed recommendation that approval be granted, arguing that the inquiry had "seriously underestimated" the impact the proposal would have on the scenery. Lafarge appealed, pointing to a planning consent issued back in 1965. Another public inquiry was held.
In May 2002, it was ruled that the 1965 consent was still valid – but for only 12 acres. Lafarge appealed. In January 2004, the appeal was rejected.
In April 2004, at a meeting in Harris, Lafarge finally announced it was abandoning the quarry proposal, and, as a goodwill gesture, donated €50,000 for local sporting facilities.
Lafarge’s decision would no doubt have been influenced by the fall in demand for aggregates in the UK, but the community on the Isle of Harris had nevertheless been blighted for 13 years. As a Lafarge executive recognised – in this document prepared for the INSEAD Business School in 2008:
the complications and ramifications of the case were becoming enormous. It was all good business for lawyers, but not much to do with my job as Head of Environment for the Lafarge Group in Paris...
I was not too concerned by the environmental considerations and those related to the indelible scar on the landscape… The quarry would only eat up some 20% of Mount Roineabhal and the scar would be seen by very few people – either those travelling on the island or at sea...
But most damaging of all was the planning blight – uncertainty affecting the planning system and local people's personal investment decisions. The island had already suffered this, and would most likely suffer it for 10 more years to say the least.
From a corporate ethical perspective it was really unfair to impose this economic cost upon the islanders...
Western Isles Council's chairman of environmental services, Angus Nicolson, said the uncertainty had damaged the economic prospects of Harris and the surrounding areas:
For the future of an area to hang in the balance for 13 long years, with the consequent disincentive to other potential businesses, is, frankly, nothing short of a disgrace.
There is of course a difference between the scale of what Lafarge had in mind for the Isle of Harris and what Aggregate Industries is fighting for at Straitgate Farm.
Aggregate Industries is struggling to make the case for a million tonnes of sand and gravel at Straitgate – having spent the best part of the last 10 years and goodness knows how much on consultants and legals. As-dug material would have to be transported by road for processing, a climate-trashing 23 miles away.
Alastair Macintosh went on to join Lafarge’s Sustainability Stakeholders' Panel for a number of years. This is from the 2005 report:
The panel’s mission is to serve as "critical friends" who challenge Lafarge’s approach to corporate responsibility, suggest improvements and form each year an opinion on Lafarge’s accountability.
The panel posed the question:
What corporate policies would be necessary if nearly all new quarrying was to be ceased, and building materials were to be created almost entirely from recycled sources of material?
LafargeHolcim, still wanting to carve up farmland in East Devon, clearly didn’t read the memo.
