The central hub of any quarry at Straitgate Farm would be the loading area.
Deciding its location would have warranted some careful consideration. Or so you would have thought.
Aggregate Industries has proposed a "50 X 50M LOADING / STOCKING AREA / LORRY PARKING":
The mineral would be loaded into articulated dump trucks for transport to the designated stocking area where it would be placed in temporary stockpiles pending export off site. The sand and gravel would be taken by articulated HGVs to Hillhead Quarry for processing. 1.5.3
A parking area for quarry vehicles will be established within the loading area to the north of Straitgate Farm. 3.1.5
The loading area is where much activity would take place. It has obviously been positioned centrally in the site, furthest away from neighbouring properties. The plan is to surround it with 5m high piles of overburden. These piles, together with the piles of topsoil and subsoils, would not only be required to restore the site back to best and most versatile agricultural land – if that were possible – but would also act as noise attenuation and screening. As the Good Quarry Entrance Design Handbook remarks:
Many quarries are located in the countryside; the introduction of noise into a rural context can be an impact in itself; it can draw attention to the quarry entrance and to have a cumulative effect with other impacts. Noise is most likely to be a regular source of complaints when the quarry and especially the processing and loading areas, are located near to residential property.
Noise calculations have been performed for the Straitgate application based on the loading area location:
HGV movements are included in the site noise calculations, at a two-way flow of 16 HGV movements per hour, on the quarry access road between the stockpiling / loading area and the new access onto Birdcage Lane, which links in to the B3174 Exeter Road. 11.2
The location of the loading area and soil mounds has implications for dust and visual impact too.
Last month we posted that Aggregate Industries had overburden storage problems. Groundwater is close to the surface in the areas where it is proposed to store overburden – areas where topsoil and subsoils would first need to be removed, potentially breaching the maximum water table. No groundwater monitoring has been carried out in these areas. The Environment Agency has proposed a condition that working should be no lower than the maximum water table.
But, of course, it’s not just the overburden storage areas where the maximum water table could be breached – it would be the loading area too.
And readers will hardly need us to point out what would happen when the water table rises above the elevation of the loading area. Not only would quarry vehicles be adding goodness knows what contamination to groundwater, but water would also gush down the sloping haul road, adding to any surface water run-off at the time, with obvious flooding implications – as yet unassessed.
Has Aggregate Industries been aware of this risk all along, hoping no one would notice?
It’s hard to believe the company didn’t know, given it has been preparing for this planning application since 2012.
Or is the company just inept in the fundamentals of quarry design – something so central to its business?
Whichever it is, Aggregate Industries is clearly not taking water at Straitgate seriously enough – be it groundwater or surface water – as we have shown time and time again.
And water is a serious subject. Get it wrong and not only would the wider community suffer, but we could be seeing scenes like this:
