Over the years, we have catalogued the fiction that Aggregate Industries has produced to support its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm, saying:
It all makes this multinational and its consultants look like a bunch of cowboys, willing to say whatever it takes. It begs another question: If AI can’t act honestly before winning any keys to dig, what hope would there be afterwards?
Last week, Aggregate Industries’ second planning application to re-open Bartletts Quarry in Somerset, a limestone quarry in the Mendips, and to cast aside previously agreed planning conditions and S106 agreements intended to protect local communities, was determined in the company’s favour. We’ve posted on this issue before. The first application had been flatly turned down in January. The second, lodged in May, was essentially the same, and again attracted the wrath of locals.
.@SomersetCouncil has u-turned on @AggregateUK's plans to reopen this quarry on the #A361 between #Frome and #SheptonMallet: https://t.co/dZLnTn7aDi #LDReporter #Somerset #HS2
— Daniel Mumby (@DanielMumby) July 30, 2021
What had changed? According to objectors, very little. Having plainly got things so wrong with the first application – suffering a 7-0 defeat – Aggregate Industries supplied revised documentation:
1.2 This revised submission therefore seeks to provide additional evidence on the benefits of allowing Bartletts Quarry to re-commence quarrying of carboniferous limestone including the nationally significant contribution Somerset makes to the country’s mineral supply and the benefits of enabling Torr to maximise rail exports and the local employment, investment and training opportunities that the minerals industry provides.
1.3 The key benefits of our application are considered to be: • Jobs and investment in the local economy, re-opening Bartletts would create up to 8 new permanent jobs and at least 6 to 10 jobs within the wider supply chain. This will complement the existing AIUK employment in Somerset of over 200 people through direct and supply chain...
Additional evidence was a moot point. Objectors questioned whether assertions made by Aggregate Industries amounted to evidence. Picking just three of the many objections at random:
much of the "evidence" cited was either known at the date of the original (rejected) application or is merely a forecast of the applicant's own making.The resubmission relies on statements that could sound persuasive but are not substantiated by detail. Up to 8 jobs could be created but there could be fewer, even none.I disagree that these applications contain any new information that would require review by the committee. This is a blatant exercise in throwing enough applications in the hope one will be approved or be missed by the local residents who are objecting. AI claim to listen to the local community, but in fact appear to ignore them and previous decisions made.
However, Somerset County Council’s planners sided with the company:
8.10.1 Objectors seems to be questioning the claims of extra employment that are raised by the applicant and whilst this is understandable the planning statement is written by a qualified professional who is a member of an institute whose claims must be trusted so as not to bring disrepute to said institute.
Given the amount of fiction uncovered in Aggregate Industries’ planning application for Straitgate, why – without seeing any evidence – was Somerset County Council so trusting? And of which institute does membership – in the eyes of Somerset County Council – bestow immunity from cross examination?
In line with legislation introduced in 2017, Aggregate Industries’ Environmental Statement included a "Statement of Competency":
In accordance with Regulation 18(5) of the EIA Regulations, the ES must be accompanied by a statement outlining the relevant expertise and qualifications of the experts who have been involved in its preparation.
A list of names was duly included, starting with an Aggregate Industries’ Planning Manager (MRTPI) who "has 30 years' experience in minerals planning", including at a Minerals Planning Authority. Which one? Somerset, of course. And which institute? The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), "the professional body representing planners in the United Kingdom and Ireland". MRTPI, signifying Chartered Town Planner, "represent the gold standard of planning practice" and are "recognised by employers, clients and members of the public for their skills, expertise and professional practice". The RTPI has a Code of Professional Conduct:
All Institute members are required to abide by the Code of Professional Conduct. If you feel that a member has breached the Code then you should consider making a complaint to the Institute. The Code of Professional Conduct requires (amongst other things) that all members should: act with competence, honesty and integrity; give their impartial professional judgement to the best of their ability... and not bring the Royal Town Planning Institute into disrepute.
This obviously raises questions in relation to Aggregate Industries’ error-ridden planning application for Straitgate Farm. Because if MRTPI represents "the gold standard of planning practice", why did the above Planning Manager put his name to this farcical half-hearted effort – "our final response to the queries raised as part of the consultation", which contained some cock-and-bull story about the 23 million tonne resource at Penslade, and utterly failed to address the majority of concerns that have been raised, including from statutory consultees on soil management and flooding – no more than 3 months after putting his name to another letter, "our final submission of additional information". Clearly, whatever MRTPI is meant to signify, one resident local to Straitgate was prompted to write:
But what do we get from Aggregate Industries in response to all these pressing unresolved issues? A cursory four page letter from a non-specialist representative saying, to all intents and purposes, that as far as they are concerned there is nothing to add, and that the matter is now closed. Interpreted more colloquially this is "two-fingers to the lot of you!" Plainly AI want a quarry approved at Straitgate, come what may, and they have finally lost patience with the general public.
