Yesterday, Dorset Council’s Strategic Planning Committee rejected Aggregate Industries’ planning application WD/D/19/000451 to extend the life of Chard Junction Quarry. The company wanted to extract some 830,000 tonnes of sand and gravel from a new site at Westford Park Farm in the Dorset AONB.
Previous posts on this application can be found here.
Dorset Council planning officers had recommended that councillors approve the application – despite the proposal's "significant adverse landscape impact on the character of the designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty", and despite the NPPF saying that development within AONBs:
should be refused for major development other than in exceptional circumstances, and where it can be demonstrated that the development is in the public interest.
A last minute letter from Aggregate Industries was sent directly to members of the committee in response to a damning technical review by an independent quarry design expert commissioned by objectors. Amongst other things, the expert claimed:
...revised Application Plans incorporates some fundamental design flaws which mean that the scheme as it stands is not capable of being developed into a detailed design that would comply with the provisions of the Quarries Regulations 1999.
The expert also raised questions over a culvert that had the potential to restrict the flow of a watercourse, "unless carefully designed." This seemed to irk the author of Aggregate Industries' letter, who retorted with "why on earth would we design something uncarefully?"
But we all know that this is exactly what has happened for multiple parts of the company’s proposal to quarry Straitgate Farm – including, coincidentally, reliance on a small, easily-blocked 3rd party culvert for surface water drainage of a large part of the site. Aggregate Industries does not have a good track record here of relying on assets that do not belong to them. Readers will remember that the company's first application for Straitgate was withdrawn in 2016 after it made the careless error of failing to check it had the necessary rights over 3rd party land.
For the Chard Junction application, Aggregate Industries’ panicky letter failed to persuade councillors, who were left unconvinced there were exceptional circumstances that would warrant such harm to the AONB – particularly given that around 90% of the extracted material would be for the decorative market. One councillor pointed to the NPPF's newly included reference to the UN’s 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development, and to the reference that sustainable development means "using natural resources prudently".
Councillors voted to reject the application by 6 votes to 3. How refreshing to see sense prevail.
Chard Junction Quarry extension rejectedhttps://t.co/Q7MOwyJoEP
— Bridport & Lyme News (@thebridportnews) September 10, 2021
