Should a planning application from Aggregate Industries be read more like a sales pitch than a promise? More like a dream than reality?
Take Aggregate Industries' plans for restoring the orchard at Straitgate Farm back to "its former glory":
3.8.14 Immediately to the south of Straitgate farmhouse is a dilapidated orchard. The orchard is shown on Ordnance Survey Maps dating back to the late 19th century and could be considered as an important part of the setting of the grade II listed farmhouse.3.8.15 The Applicant recognises the value of the orchard both to biodiversity and to the heritage asset and proposes to restore the orchard to its former glory by propagation from existing apple trees, growing them on and replanting in a grid pattern. Cuttings will ensure local providence and the restored orchard will provide an attractive feature.
The orchard even featured in Aggregate Industries' error-laden Greenhouse Gas Assessment. As we previously posted, this greenwashing document told us that the "17,200m2 of restored orchard" would be planted "at a density of 2,250 trees/Ha" – a staggering 3,870 trees that would supposedly sequester an impossible "9.3 tCO2e" annually. Bonkers.
Restoration of this orchard would, Aggregate Industries claimed in its application, involve the following:
2.6 A specialist local nursery will be engaged to graft new trees for the orchard. This involves taking cutting of scion wood from trees in the orchard and grafting them onto the stems of suitable rootstock grown at the nursery. This new grafted tree can be grown on in a pot for 2 – 3 years before being planted out in the orchard. This method guarantees the new tree will produce fruit of exactly the same variety as the tree from which it was pruned. Cuttings will be taken from 10 trees as agreed with the nursery. When grafted trees are ready, they will be planted in suitable gaps around the orchard and protected from stock grazing by individual timber post and rail with stock netting shelters, 1.8m high and 1m square.
Cuttings will be taken from 10 trees, although but it’s not altogether clear how many would actually be planted. Surely a minimum of 10?
85. The appellant also proposes restoration of the orchard at the front of Straitgate Farmhouse. Cuttings from the existing apple trees would be propagated and planted. We saw on our visit that tree cover within the orchard is sparse compared with what it would have been historically. Because the orchard is part of the historic layout of the grounds to the farmhouse, its restoration can be given some weight in favour.
The restoration influenced the Inspectors’ planning balance.
154. There are also significant material considerations which weigh in favour of the proposal. These include… restoration of the orchard at Straitgate Farm.
Aggregate Industries has now submitted its Landscape and Ecological Management Plan to Devon County Council for approval in order to satisfy Condition 7 of the permission. How many trees are proposed to be planted? 3870? 100? 10?
5.4.2 Five new trees from this grafted stock should be planted in the nursery when they are ready. Newly planted trees should be protected by a square, post and rail tree guard with stock netting to protect the tree from sheep grazing, such as the one in the photograph below.
Five. Isn't Aggregate Industries embarrassed by this sort of thing?
