East Devon District Council, who is required by law to monitor private water supplies to ensure safety standards are met, has responded to Aggregate Industries’ planning application to quarry Straitgate:
However unlikely, it’s clear that a residual risk remains to the private water supplies from the application, in terms of maintaining sufficiency and quality of the water. As such, there is a potential risk to health for consumers...
We consider the Head of Terms to be currently insufficient to mitigate any temporary risks to health which could arise from contamination or derogation of private supplies, as substantial delays in provision of temporary arrangements are likely to manifest while the attributable cause is agreed or contested. Improvement to the 106 Agreement should be obtained prior to any permission being granted, whereby temporary wholesome supplies should be provided in lieu of the likely cause of any water deficiency being investigated and determined.The draft Heads of terms referenced can be found here. We last posted on this issue here.
