Aggregate Industries may know something about the the quarrying industry – although given
what a pigs-ear it’s made of its application to dig up Straitgate Farm that’s questionable – but it's got into a real mess with the cows. Incredibly, more than two years on, according to information released recently through a Freedom of Information request, the subject is still taxing both Devon County Council and Aggregate Industries: the cattle crossing issue is still not resolved, and safety assessments of cows crossing this road have still not been made.
As long as it’s done safely, a farmer has as much right to drive cattle on a public highway as an aggregates company has to fill it with 44-tonne HGVs. After all, many of our public roads had their origins in the movement of livestock. And lest we forget, farming needs our support:
Agriculture is an integral part of the Devon economy and wider community, and in difficult and rapidly changing times this sector needs support, to ensure local food production continues to exist and grow for the future.
Farming is intrinsic to Devon. Today, agriculture and food production accounts for 13% of the county’s economy, compared to 7.6% nationally. As well as providing us with food and drink, over the centuries farming has created diverse and beautiful landscapes and wildlife habitats.
The [Straitgate] site should be restored to enable resumption of agricultural use… The working and restoration phasing should minimise the area of land not in cultivation, as soil is best conserved by being farmed rather than stored where some deterioration may occur. C.4
Aggregate Industries’
Supporting Statement on the other hand warns that, after the mineral has been worked "in a series of phases over a period of between 10 and 12 years
3.2.1", the land will be no good for anything but "light intensity agricultural grazing
3.8.7".
Straitgate Farm has around 150 cows and access to around 150 acres on the north side of the B3174 Exeter Road. Of those, 120 acres are owned by Aggregate Industries, 105 acres of which are the subject of its planning application. The farmer has access to 82 acres to the south of the B3174, which are not owned by Aggregate Industries.
As we told Devon County Council back in March 2017, in our response to the application, and as we posted in
Bovine movements the following month: In Aggregate Industries’ rush to get its hands on the sand and gravel, it had forgotten all about the cows:
With less pasture, the dairy herd would need access to more fields, available on the south side of the B3174. What safe provision would be provided for the dairy herd to cross this road four times a day?
It has been suggested that the reduction in available farmland on the Straitgate side of the B3174 means that there will have to be cattle movement across the road to land on the south for grazing and milking. As the applicant is the landlord for the Agricultural Tenancy then the MPA would request a joint statement of the likely impact and number of such agricultural movements on the safety of the public highway. If it is the case that this will happen as a result of the proposal then the impacts should be factored into the safety assessments and traffic calculations.
The new route would include a proposed cattle crossing on the B3174 Exeter Road. The number of daily movements over the proposed cattle crossing at times when the dairy herd is grazing the land south of Exeter Road would be twice in each direction.
...the applicant was also asked to provide a joint statement with their tenant with relation to farm crossing movements and how they might be managed.
However (and with this application there’s always a
however) neither "a joint statement" or "safety assessments and traffic calculations" have since been provided. More on the latter in
a future post, but on the former, as recently as February of this year,
Revision C of the Transport Assessment did contain a joint statement, authored by Aggregate Industries but unsigned:
3.2.4 At the request of the Mineral Planning Authority a Joint Statement has been prepared which reproduces the information provided by the Tenant Farmer above and outlines the commitment of Aggregate Industries UK to the proposed mitigation that will negate the need for additional livestock movements across the public highway that currently forms the baseline, a copy of this statement is reproduced within Appendix E for reference.
3.2.5 Although the purpose of the Joint Statement is to assist in formalising the information already provided by both parties the Tenant Farmer has been advised by their Solicitor and Agent not to sign the document. However, the fact that the document has not been signed does not detract from the validity of the baseline information supplied to date by the Tenant Farmer.
Since then, Aggregate Industries has had that unsigned joint statement removed, to be replaced in
Revision E with a no-more-binding email instead. The company’s TA now says:
1.1.8 It has been agreed with the Tenant farmer that by the provision of new cow tracks, access points and other appropriate infrastructure, preceding or in parallel with the quarry development, that there will not be a need to intensify livestock crossings over the B3174 Exeter Road above that already stated as the baseline.
1.1.9 The Applicant, Aggregate Industries UK, will work with any current or future operator of the farm to maintain sufficient grazing such that livestock crossings will not need to increase above the baseline stated within the email from West Country Rural Ltd.
That referenced email concludes by saying:
In the event that no cow tracks were installed at Straitgate, and in time that no additional cubicle housing were erected to house the dairy herd these movements would need to occur daily.
So, to be clear: When Aggregate Industries says "it has been agreed", it has not. Aggregate Industries is just relying on a third party email. There is no agreement, no signature, no signed joint statement of the type promised to our MP.
So, to be clear: When Aggregate Industries says "other appropriate infrastructure" – cubicle housing, or whatever – the TA is not offering to supply that.
So, to be clear: When Aggregate Industries says "maintain sufficient grazing", Phase 1 alone of any quarry would take away 56 acres, which – according to 3.4.10 of Aggregate Industries’ Supporting Statement – would not be restored until Phase 3:
Initially, the applicant will need to resume some 22.5ha to facilitate the first stage of the proposed development (Phase 1). In addition to the area required for mineral extraction, this area will include the land required for temporary soil storage bunds and access. 2.1.10
But more of that another day.
So, if land is taken away for quarrying, it goes without saying that the farmer – to maintain a viable operation – would have no choice but to regularly take the cows to the other side of the road for replacement pasture, cows that would need to be returned to the parlour to be milked, crossing the B3174 Exeter Road up to four times a day in the process. It's what farmers do elsewhere in the county, and the country – see
the post below.
Where does that leave us? At the end of September, Devon County Council – following advice from their Highways Management department – wrote to Aggregate Industries saying:
The application needs to include the proposed agricultural access (TA 5.5.10) to the west of the existing farm access and directly opposite the existing field gate, to improve upon the current diagonal crossing point. That would enable a shorter traverse of the highway by livestock, effectively reducing crossing times. The Highway Authority also considers that these proposals should include holding pens on both sides of the road to assist in the efficient movement of the livestock. It appears that this would be a betterment of the existing situation and is related to the proposed mineral working based upon the worst case scenario of the available cattle movements, as put forward (TA 3.2.3) in the email from the Tenant Farmer [sic] to the Mineral Planning Authority dated 26 February 2018. The inclusion of the above is, we believe, outside of the application site and therefore it would possibly require a resubmission of the application to include it. However we do not believe that it is sufficient for the applicant to merely offer this to the Tenant Farmer and the Highway Authority without any means of the MPA being able to condition it.
Of course, Aggregate Industries does not control any land to the south of the B3174 that could be used for "holding pens" and be part of its planning application. What’s known as a
Grampian condition would be needed: "a planning condition attached to a decision notice that prevents the start of a development until off-site works have been completed on land not controlled by the applicant." Devon County Council’s solicitor advised the Council’s head of planning by email that "the conditionality of the Grampian must be within the applicant’s gift to deal with, and there must be a reasonable prospect of so doing." So, that’s another complication.
And that’s where – more than two years on – we stood at the end of September, the date of our FOI, regarding just one of the issues raised by this contentious application.
Clearly – and for such a busy and fast road – this is something that needs to be carefully assessed before determination, otherwise we could end up with
situations similar to this:
