Aggregate Industries' planning application for "a new agricultural access onto the B3174 Exeter Road to facilitate an efficient crossing point for the current dairy herd at Straitgate Farm" was today approved by East Devon District Council.
It may have been a hollow victory for the company though, given that Condition 6 – "The access shall not be used for any additional livestock movements" – would not permit the current dairy herd to use the new access more than a few times a year.
Aggregate Industries’ representative spoke at the meeting, claiming:
The farm tenants, via their agent, had informed the company of their requirements to move the dairy herd and other livestock, more particularly described in the application document at paragraph 1.7 of the supporting statement, across the Exeter Road to access other grazing land to the south owned by the tenants’ family.
In other words, it was all the tenants’ idea, the company was doing them a favour. Yeah, right.
The truth is that only when it became clear that a quarry at Straitgate Farm would remove almost 90% of the grazing land on the north side of the road were Devon County Council informed that the dairy herd would need to regularly cross the B3174 Exeter Road to access replacement pasture. Aggregate Industries submitted the planning application for a new field access and holding pens following advice from Devon County Council.
Where do we stand now? Nothing has changed. The farm's dairy herd would still need to access replacement pasture on the south side of the road should a quarry proceed. Does this application put any restriction on future movements elsewhere? Of course not. As we’ve posted before:
... neither Aggregate Industries nor Devon County Council can tell the farmer how to run their business. There are no laws preventing farmers herding livestock across or along roads. The highway authority has no explicit powers to prevent a farmer doing so. As long as it's done safely, with crossing points washed down, if the farmer needs to put cows across the road to sustain their business then they can do so. It happens all over Devon.
Cllr Key echoed the very same thing at the meeting today:
In actual fact, if somebody wanted, they could walk cattle from one end of that road to the other, and nobody could stop them, so long as they’ve got somebody in front and somebody behind, there’s no way at all that anybody could stop them, and they could take all day to do it.
