Aggregate Industries’ planning application to quarry Straitgate will not now be determined in October. The company has failed to meet yet another agreed extension, the 13th such extension since 2017.
On 23 September 2021, the case officer wrote:
I have agreed an extension of time until the end of November although I hope to take it to Committee in October.
Less than 3 weeks have passed since then, but the goalposts appear to have been moved for Aggregate Industries yet again.
Clearly, after all these years, the company is still struggling to join the dots, still struggling to provide the necessary information, and the Council seems prepared to give the cement giant all the time in the world to do so, at considerable cost to local people and businesses blighted and unable to move on from the overhanging threat of development.
Back in October 2020, Devon County Council warned Aggregate Industries:
There is increasing and justified concern within the community about the length of time being taken to determine this application and the delays in providing requested information.This application has now been with the County Council for nearly three years [six years since the initial application] and the uncertainty for the local community is a situation that the County Council as Mineral Planning Authority can no longer accept by continuing to request further delays in the determination due to a lack of the information we have been asking Aggregate Industries to provide.I must advise you that any extension of the determination date will now be limited to a reasonable period of time for you to do this work. The County Council will not be requesting a further extension of time beyond the end of this year and if the information is not provided in sufficient time for a determination at the meeting on 27th January, then it is my advice that the County Council is likely to proceed to determine the application as it stands and in the absence of the clarification we have requested on a number of important points.
That was 2020. Three extensions have been agreed since then, and no doubt Aggregate Industries will now be looking for another.
It is unclear, however – 12 months on from that letter, with 12 extra months granted to Aggregate Industries and 12 extra months of blight for the community – why Devon County Council, who is under a duty to act fairly, did not feel in a position "to determine the application as it stands". One can only guess.
