Some 120 people and businesses and farms are dependent on the Straitgate aquifer for their drinking water supplies – supplies now at risk from Aggregate Industries’ planning permission.
Last week, Aggregate Industries personnel delivered invitations to local people reliant on those private water supplies to join the company’s water monitoring scheme.
This was not some charitable gesture. It forms part of the company’s legal agreement – necessary to secure permission – which undertook "within one calendar month of the date of the Planning Permission" to:
send an Offer Letter to Private Water Supplies Interests offering to monitor their water supply in accordance with the Water Supply Monitoring Scheme for the lifetime of the Planning Permission and thereafter in accordance with the Post Restoration Water Supply Monitoring Scheme...;
where:
"Private Water Supply Interests" means those persons who own or occupy the Private Water Supplies as listed in Appendix 7 or as otherwise notified to the Owner pursuant to paragraph 1.1.3 of Schedule 1 to this Deed;
A template of the offer letter can be found here.
Aggregate Industries will provide "12 months of baseline monitoring (consisting of monthly visits to check water levels and sampling of water quality)." Furthermore, in line with condition 27:
Prior to the commencement of development, a water supply monitoring scheme shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Mineral Planning Authority.
Amongst other things, this shall specify:
the frequency of monitoring at the private water supplies which for the avoidance of doubt shall be a minimum of once per month for the lifetime of the planning permission
