This month, Devon County Council published its 12th Local Aggregate Assessment. The LAA is:
… published annually to inform development and monitoring of Minerals/Local Plans, including recent sales and revisions to levels of reserves and the length of landbanks.
According to the LAA, sales of land-won sand and gravel in the county have continued to flatline, with 0.521 million tonnes sold in 2022, down 4% from 0.541 the previous year. As the chart below shows, sales have not recovered since the financial crisis of 2008.
Sales of secondary and recycled aggregates across the county, however, tell another story.
In 2022, secondary aggregates continued to outsell sand and gravel. The LAA explains:
3.3.1 The major source of secondary aggregates in Devon is the by-products derived from the extraction and processing of china clay in the Lee Moor area of Devon, which in 2022 accounted for 85% of the county’s production of secondary aggregates (an increase of approximately 6% from 2021). For each tonne of saleable china clay, up to nine tonnes of other materials are produced, with two main elements capable of use as secondary aggregate: stent (rock), which can be used as general fill or, after crushing and screening, for other aggregate purposes; and tip sand (washed material comprising quartz, unaltered feldspar and mica) which, with grading and washing, can be used for a variety of aggregate purposes including concrete and building sand.
And sales of recycled aggregates grew in 2022, approaching sales of sand and gravel.
Despite the current economic uncertainty, sales of recycled aggregates increased by approximately 12% in 2022 from the previous year.
The LAA describes recycled aggregates as:
the waste arising from construction, demolition and excavation activity comprises a range of materials, of which the ‘hard inert’ elements (e.g. concrete, bricks, stone) can be recycled for use as aggregates.
With regard to future availability, there are hundreds of millions of tonnes of china clay mining waste piled all over Devon and Cornwall. A planning application by Aggregate Industries to continue to work secondary aggregates at Lee Moor was approved in 2019. In relation to recycled aggregates, according to the LAA:
4.2.9 ... the annual processing capacity of Devon’s fixed CDEW recycling facilities (estimated as 1.28 million tonnes in the 2020/21 Devon Waste Plan AMR) is more than adequate for current and potentially greater levels of recycled aggregates production.
The hope must be that sales of the more sustainable secondary and recycled aggregate alternatives will displace the need for digging up primary virgin sand and gravel, including material from the Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds.
Hanson’s Town Farm Quarry, near Burlescombe, is one source of material from the Pebble Beds. The LAA reports that the site was mothballed this year:
2.5.7 Town Farm forms part of Hanson’s Whiteball operation, for which the processing plant lies in Somerset adjacent to its border with Devon. An application for the continuation of extraction of existing sand and gravel reserves for a further 10 years was received in November 2022 and permission was granted in March 2023. The site was still operational in 2022, however, it was temporarily mothballed on 1st February 2023.
So, clearly, material from the Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds – the same material that underlies Straitgate Farm – is not in such high demand, nor so profitable, for Hanson to be persuaded to keep the gates at Town Farm open.
