Last week, Aggregate Industries was granted permission, DCC/4235/2021, to drill nine boreholes at Penslade, a site adjacent to Hillhead near Uffculme, that – like Straitgate Farm – is designated a Preferred Area for sand and gravel extraction in the Devon Minerals Plan, but – unlike Straitgate Farm – has 8 million tonnes and is 23 miles closer to the company's processing plant.
In fact, where Straitgate would yield less than 1 million tonnes of material – if the company ever works out how to design effective infiltration areas – the area around Penslade Farm would give Aggregate Industries access to some 23 million tonnes – more than 70 years' worth based on sales of 300k tonnes per year. The statement below, from the Minerals Plan, hardly needed saying:
Policy M12 proposes two new locations for mineral working... In the event that Straitgate Farm proved to be incapable of being delivered, then the other site, West of Penslade Cross, would have adequate resources to enable sand and gravel supply to be maintained for the Plan period.
Most of this area is owned by Aggregate Industries. In relation to the boreholes, the company says:
The boreholes will be between 23m and 38m in depth and piezometers will be installed to enable the monitoring of the watertable as required by the Devon Minerals Local Plan.
The Minerals Plan specifies "groundwater monitoring for a minimum 12 month period."
This has been in the pipeline some time. In 2017, we posted Plans to install piezometers at Penslade:
at a meeting last week, AI's Head of Geological Services confirmed that budgets are now in place to install piezometers at Penslade…
You might ask, however, why these plans were only submitted in the middle of a consultation to quarry Straitgate Farm, a proposal that would see minerals worked "over a period of between 10 and 12 years" and would not start until 2023? Was it coincidence, or did Aggregate Industries sense things going pear-shaped with the Straitgate application again?
In 2017, on being questioned about Penslade by Devon County Council, Aggregate Industries reckoned:
It is envisaged that groundwater monitoring will be undertaken for a minimum of 3 years prior to submission of a planning application in some 5 years hence.
but went on to say that the site "subject to planning, would come on stream approximately 2030."
Aggregate Industries will obviously be hoping for more success with Penslade than with Straitgate, where boreholes were first drilled in 2013, and where 8 years later, in 2021, the company is still floundering. In its first application for Straitgate back in 2015, Aggregate Industries had been hoping on the site "being available from early 2016". It wasn't to be. The application was pulled following a complete fiasco. In March 2017, another application was submitted with the hope that mineral would start being imported from Straitgate into Hillhead Quarry by "mid 2018".
The fact that Aggregate Industries has been able to function quite happily for the last 5 years with just the sand and gravel from Houndaller – a reserve of some 2.9 million tonnes at the last count, enough to last for 10 years – clearly means it can survive quite happily without Straitgate.
