If, in the course of nearly seven years, an international company with quarrying interests is unable to produce a cogent planning application for a quarry, then it is reasonable to conclude that there is something seriously wrong with the application or the applicant or both. No reasonable observer, taking into account the lengthy correspondence between the Planning Authority, Aggregate Industries (AI) and those of us questioning the application's credibility, could conclude otherwise. Questions on climate change, sustainability, quarrying methods, hydrological sensitivity, road safety (and more) remain inadequately addressed, or not addressed at all. The serial postponements and delays, alongside inaccurate, misleading and sometimes downright wrong information in AI's submissions mark it unacceptable to any credible planning assessment.
There is a question too about the role that DCC has played in this process, which has been to indulge AI with seemingly unlimited time allowances while doing very little to support the Devon environment and those resident in it, which are its primary responsibility. It would be facile to point out to members where their interests should be focussed, they will know that well enough, but at the moment it is impossible to discover any sense that the planning authority has a role beyond finding a way, against all reason, to approve an application which should not be approved, and rubber stamp the avarice of a foreign company with no interest whatever in Devon beyond what it can extract from it. There will no doubt be pressure from AI to approve, regardless of the final condition of their ramshackle application, but Council Tax payers expect their environment to be protected, and the planning process to proceed fairly. That must surely be the Council’s overriding priority.
I do, therefore (for the fourth or fifth time) urge the Authority to show some genuine concern for Devon and the people who live here and reject this dreadful application. Chris Wakefield
