It looks like Aggregate Industries' planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm will be kicked down the tracks yet again.
Will this farce never end?
Last October, we posted that Aggregate Industries had agreed with Devon County Council that the date for determination should be extended from 31 October 2020 to 31 March 2021. It was the 11th such extension. Apparently the company needed "further time to compile the additional information that has been requested". The previous decade was obviously not long enough.
In February, we posted that it was clear that even this extension would be missed.
This has now been confirmed in a letter from Devon County Council to Aggregate Industries, dated 11 March but made public yesterday, for the linked planning application DCC/3945/2017 to import Straitgate material into Hillhead 23 miles away:
I am writing to ask you to formally agree to extend the period for the determination of your application until 30 September 2021. You have indicated this will give you adequate time. Please respond by email within 5 working days from the date of this letter to confirm your agreement with the extension.
At the time of writing, no reply had been posted on Devon County Council’s planning website.
Plainly there are still difficulties in the Aggregate Industries camp, despite all the noises to the contrary.
Last December, the company's CEO Guy Edwards claimed the company would be submitting the additional information required "shortly".
In February, Devon County Council’s planning officer told an interested party that Aggregate Industries was intending to submit the outstanding information "within the next two weeks." The Council’s Head of Planning advised East Devon’s MP much the same.
That was almost 6 weeks ago.
So what’s the hold-up this time? Was information really going to be submitted in "the next two weeks" or was Aggregate Industries – including its CEO – just playing people along? Or has the company discovered some new dilemma?
It was back in 2015 – now some 2,128 days ago – that Aggregate Industries submitted its first planning application to quarry Straitgate with a parallel application for processing, 8 miles away at Blackhill on Woodbury Common. After two public consultations, the company withdrew both applications. About 150 carefully reasoned objections were junked by Devon County Council. We posted:
How many other sand and gravel operations can there be in the UK, where 8 miles separate quarry and processing plant? We haven’t come across one yet.
In 2017, the whole thing started again but this time with processing proposed even further away at Hillhead near Uffculme, some 23 MILES AWAY. Clearly, at Aggregate Industries, climate change is for others to deal with. Anyway, another public consultation followed. Further information was supplied by the company. Another consultation.
Last year, brilliantly timed to coincide with Christmas and a global pandemic, Aggregate Industries submitted an application for a cattle crossing to facilitate its quarry plans. Two more rounds of public consultation ensued.
Of course, these are all on top of the countless consultations over the years for the Minerals Plan.
The whole thing has been a mess. Aggregate Industries doesn't care. The Council doesn't care. Attrition is plainly the strategy to shoehorn a wholly unsustainable sand and gravel quarry into the East Devon countryside, wiping out ancient hedgerows and veteran oaks, habitat for bats and dormice, irreversibly damaging drinking water supplies to more than 100 people, farms, businesses, ancient woodland and Grade I listed Cadhay, risking flooding to downstream Ottery, causing danger and delay on our roads, worsening our climate emergency.
All this for a relatively trivial amount, when the the sand and gravel at Hillhead – next to the processing plant – is enough to last another 30 years or more.
Why the delay since 2017? One reason is water. Aggregate Industries' model of the maximum water table – the base of any quarry – has been shown to be incorrect by 1.6m in one area and 2.8m in another. Rick Brassington – award-winning Professor of Hydrogeology – said any quarrying at Straitgate Farm would permanently damage surrounding water supplies.
But the biggest delay by a farmyard mile would appear to have been caused by the cattle crossing issue. This matter has still not been resolved. On 25 March, East Devon District Council confirmed:
I have had no communication from Devon Highways so I don’t currently have a timescale for a decision.
So on we go. Seemingly, a planning application without end.
