Whilst the company’s planning application for Straitgate Farm sits in perpetual limbo, Aggregate Industries is finding time for other planning matters.
We’ve already posted how the company found time to submit plans for a new asphalt plant at Hillhead – with its 27m high hilltop smokestack.
Now, Aggregate Industries has found time to make another planning application, this time in relation to Marshbroadmoor near Rockbeare. DCC/4197/2020 seeks "Variation of Condition 3 of planning permission DCC/4132/2019 to allow the importation of material until 31 March 2021."
Permission was granted to work Marshbroadmoor back in 1995. Twenty five years on, this small parcel of land – that has yielded no more than a few hundred thousand tonnes of sand and gravel – has still not been restored.
Devon County Council approved planning application DCC/4132/2019 in December last year, with Condition 3 stipulating that "restoration shall be phased in strict accordance with the letter dated 20 November 2019" and that:
The importation of material at the area known as Marshbroadmoor outlined on drawing no. 2647-4-1-DR-0005 S5-P9 (dated December 2019) must cease by 30 September 2020.
Aggregate Industries is claiming exceptional circumstances again. Not this time as an argument to despoil an AONB – currently the Dorset AONB – but because of Covid-19:
Due to the exceptional circumstances of the Covid 19 pandemic inputs at Marshbroadmoor have not been as expected and we are therefore seeking a short time extension of 6 months to the 31 March 2021 to continue importing material to complete the approved restoration works.
We hope the Council will recognise that these are events wholly outside the control of the company and will support this short time extension as it will assist in supporting the local businesses as the local economy continues to recover.
Aggregate Industries claims the requested extension will not delay overall restoration of the site, due by 30 December 2021. Time will tell.
