The quarry earmarked by Aggregate Industries as the destination for processing any winnings from Straitgate Farm already has – according to Devon County Council’s latest monitoring report – "sufficient reserves of sand and gravel."
Sufficient for what you might ask? For Aggregate Industries? For Devon? For evermore?
In the Supporting Statement for the Straitgate Farm application in 2017, Aggregate Industries claimed:
The Hillhead Quarry mineral deposit comprises 4.2 million tonnes of sand rich sand and gravel with planning permission in an area known as Houndaller.
Hillhead near Uffculme is the location that had not only 4 million tonnes of permitted reserves but also a further 8 million tonnes of resource nearby.
Hillhead is also the site to where Aggregate Industries wants to transport any as-dug winnings of sand and gravel from Straitgate for processing – a mere 1 million tonnes in comparison – necessitating a 46 mile round trip for each load, 2.5 million miles in all; Climate emergency? Not at Aggregate Industries.
You might have hoped that Aggregate Industries – being in the business of digging up minerals – would be proficient at estimating all this resource, but in 2019, we posted AI has lost sand and gravel reserves AGAIN, this time at Hillhead.
The reader may remember that Aggregate Industries has a habit of 'losing' resource in this region; 2 million tonnes went missing at nearby Marshbroadmoor and Venn Ottery. Both sites had similar geology to Straitgate and Hillhead, both yielded considerably less than initially expected.
In the 2018 Monitoring Report for Hillhead, Devon County Council wrote:
4.9 Houndaller contains an estimated reserve of 4.2 million tonnes of sand and gravel and extraction resumed on this part of the site on 16 September 2016.
Estimated was the salient word. And plainly the estimation by Aggregate Industries wasn’t very good.
By the time of the 2019 Monitoring Report, Devon County Council reported that the 4.2 million tonnes had dropped to 2.2 million:
4.2 The current extraction is at Houndaller and the processing in Hillhead. The site has the benefit of consent until 21 February 2037. Current production levels are estimated at 320,000 tonnes per year.
4.10 Houndaller contains an estimated reserve of 2.2 million tonnes of sand and gravel. Extraction resumed on this part of the site on 16 September 2016. The Schedule 14 review application allowed extraction to continue until 21 February 2037 securing the future of extraction of the remaining reserves at the site.
We thought the Council must have made a typo. Apparently not. So where, in the space of just one year, had 2 million tonnes gone? In actual fact, a mistake had been made – by Aggregate Industries. According to correspondence from the company:
The Quarry Manager who hosted the Monitoring Visit on the 19th September 2019 made a topographic error that was recorded in the Monitoring Report; the reserve figure should have read 2.9 million tonnes and not 2.2 million tonnes.
Even so, the company, in its "re-evaluation of reserves", had still lost some 700k tonnes. This equated to more than two years' supply, and very nearly the amount available at Straitgate Farm. How jolly careless.
Aggregate Industries got a bit stroppy about the whole business, not at all grateful to third parties pointing out the anomaly, instead complaining:
For reasons of commercial confidentiality it is an accepted principle that individual quarry reserve/sales figures where a Quarry Operator can be identified remains confidential and excluded from Site Monitoring Reports which are published on MPA websites. This principle will be enforced for AIUK sites going forward, notwithstanding that quarry managers may refer to this detail during monitoring visits...
To be quite clear, we will not be entering into any further correspondence with third parties on matters relating to commercially sensitive reserves and sales figures in the future.
Devon County Council has recently published a new monitoring report for Hillhead. And indeed, in line with that correspondence, gone is any mention of tonnage, either per year or in the ground:
4.2 The current extraction is at Houndaller and the processing in Hillhead. The site has the benefit of consent until 21 February 2037.
4.9 Houndaller contains sufficient reserves of sand and gravel. Extraction resumed on this part of the site on 16 September 2016. The Schedule 14 review application allowed extraction to continue until 21 February 2037 securing the future of extraction of the remaining reserves at the site.
So "an estimated reserve of 2.2 million tonnes" – or "2.9 million tonnes" or whatever Aggregate Industries has guessed this year – is now described as "sufficient reserves of sand and gravel."
And if that is the case, then clearly there is no more need for a quarry at Straitgate, or anywhere else.
