In July, we posted AI's plan to extend Chard quarry would have ‘significant adverse impact on AONB’, how Aggregate Industries' planning application WD/D/19/000451 submitted to Dorset Council to extend Chard Junction Quarry at Westford Park Farm had attracted objections from Dorset AONB Partnership, and also from Dorset Council Landscape Officer who wrote:
I have a concern that a detrimental effect on this part of the AONB is unavoidable with assessment C not being met of the National Planning Policy Framework 2019. The proposed quarry extension with its associated haul road is considered to have the potential for a significant adverse landscape impact on the character of the designated Area of Outstanding Natural beauty.
The NPPF is of course very clear about AONBs:
Planning permission should be refused for major development other than in exceptional circumstances…
Aggregate Industries is plainly getting rattled by the responses to this application, and the company’s consultants have now fired off another letter to Dorset Council to re-address the AONB issue – claiming that the Council and the Dorset AONB team have got it all wrong:
...we consider that the Landscape officers’ and AONB Team’s consultation responses do not reflect a balanced assessment of the development.
Well, Aggregate Industries' consultants would say that, wouldn't they?
These consultants – being completely impartial, of course – think they are the ones who can provide a balanced view. As if. Last month – representing the company that couldn't care less about carbon and climate change, if its multi-million mile haulage scheme for Straitgate Farm is anything to go by – they wrote:
Taking a balanced view, it is considered that given the clear and substantive benefits that this scheme can bring to this part of the AONB, the carbon and climate change benefits of retaining a sand and gravel quarry within this location, the associated benefits to the local economy and the acceptable environmental and technical assessments, the proposed extension at Westford Park Farm is in the public interest and the proposal meets the exceptional circumstances as set out in paragraph 172.
However balanced Aggregate Industries' consultants' view might be, they did nothing more than rehash the same tired old arguments, adding nothing new or exceptional to justify why the company's sand and gravel quarry at Chard Junction should continue to blight the Dorset AONB.
In fact, the above paragraph has been wheeled out before, lazily lifted virtually word for word from a previous document in April:
4.1.20 Therefore, it is considered that given the clear and substantive benefits that this scheme can bring to this part of the AONB, the carbon and climate change benefits of retaining a sand and gravel quarry within this location, the associated benefits to the local economy and the acceptable environmental and technical assessments, the proposed extension at Westford Park Farm is in the public interest and the proposal meets the exceptional circumstances tests set out in the NPPF.
We already know that Dorset AONB Partnership has found Aggregate Industries' arguments for exceptional circumstances "uncompelling":
I note that the applicant has submitted information in support of their view that the proposal is able to meet the requirements of an exceptional circumstances test. In my opinion, there are aspects of the arguments presented that are uncompelling.
Furthermore:
The major adverse effect of the operation of the proposed extension on the undeveloped, tranquil and remote character of the site and its context clearly compromise the special qualities of the AONB, placing the application in conflict with a wide range of Management Plan policies, as listed earlier.
These views should hardly come as a surprise to Aggregate Industries. As far back as 2018, a scoping opinion from Dorset Council stated:
The Dorset AONB Team have also provided the following comments “At this early stage I would like to express my strong concern regarding the foreseeable landscape and visual effects of the proposal. The site area possesses a strong and attractive rural character, with an undulating pastoral appearance and mature hedgerows and trees bounding the fields. There are close views into the site area from publicly accessible locations and the area is an integral part of the hillside in views into the AONB from the opposite side of the Axe Valley. Consequently, it is my opinion that the site is highly sensitive to the proposed development and it is difficult to see how foreseeable significant effects could be satisfactorily addressed.”
