Holcim UK trials autonomous technology in Devon. What will be the human cost?

Mineral operators applying to extend or establish a new quarry will typically emphasise the number of jobs they will preserve or create, hoping to influence councillors on planning committees. 

Some companies even go to the press with tales of jobs that would be lost if quarry plans don't go ahead. In 2015, for instance, the headline East Devon quarry block ‘will put jobs at risk’ appeared locally:

THE livelihoods of East Devon quarry employees will be at risk if proposals for a 100-acre quarry on the outskirts of Ottery St Mary do not go ahead. 

Officials from Aggregate Industries, which runs quarries at Blackhill on Woodbury Common, and Venn Ottery, have confirmed that this is the reality if they cannot proceed with their plans to quarry Straitgate Farm near Daisymount roundabout. 

It is not clear exactly how many jobs could be affected but it is thought to be less than 10.

The reality was indeed less than 10. In the supporting statement for its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm, Aggregate Industries – now Holcim UK – confirmed: 

3.5.8 The number of full time employees at the site would be three. 

It’s a small number, although still exaggerated because: 

3.5.2 Mineral working would be carried out on a campaign basis, comprising two or three working periods or campaigns, with each campaign lasting five to seven weeks. 

Nevertheless, the number of jobs in the UK quarrying industry has been declining for decades. Back in 2012 we posted: 

Even over the last 10 years there has been a dramatic fall in employee numbers in sand and gravel, with the UK Minerals Yearbook reporting over 8000 employees in 2001, but under 3000 in 2010. The HSE says the "industry has difficulty attracting and recruiting staff" and "anecdotal evidence suggests an ageing workforce".

It’s not clear where the sand and gravel employment numbers have gone in recent years, although they are unlikely to have increased, judging by these ONS numbers. 

In 2019, the ONS estimated that 57% of jobs in the "quarry workers and related operatives" sector were at risk from automation.

We first posted about autonomous vehicles in 2018, when they were being trialled at a Swedish quarry. 

Last year, autonomous vehicles were trialled in Devon, when Sibelco hosted the UK’s first driverless dump truck at its china clay quarry near Plymouth. 

Last week, Holcim UK announced that it had also chosen Devon to trial autonomous technology, again at a china clay quarry processing secondary aggregates near Plymouth.

HOLCIM UK have taken part in a trial utilizing AI-powered autonomous technology to operate an excavator. The trial, which took place at the company’s Lee Moor sand and gravel quarry [sic], near Plymouth, Devon, involved a 23-tonne Develon crawler excavator fitted with autonomous technology from Swiss start-up Gravis Robotics. 

Once set-up and testing had taken place, the machine was tasked with feeding the hopper of a screener with sand and gravel at target performance rate of 100 cycles per hour. During two days of testing the machine was able to average 133 cycles per hour, shifting 1,500 tonnes of material daily with 99% accuracy and minimal spillage. 

Paul Mitchinson, head of mobile plant at Holcim UK, was quoted as saying: 

"We were excited to be able to take part in the trial at one of our quarries and see how autonomous technology could work and be successfully integrated into day-to-day operations.

"The introduction of this type of technology in our industry could lead to greater productivity through increased output and consistency, improved safety on site, and improved sustainability through optimizing the performance of large plant equipment.

"As a company, we are continuously seeking to innovate and to improve our ways of working in order to enhance productivity. This includes exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can support what we do to help us be more efficient." 

For greater productivity and efficiency – read fewer jobs. 

Holcim has had its sights on autonomous technology for some time.

[Press release] Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Holcim Switzerland have partnered to jointly test and further develop the use of autonomous electric haulers in a limestone quarry: https://t.co/dcw0DXks06 #Futureoftransportation #autonomousvehicles pic.twitter.com/Oy11nheyQE

— Volvo Group (@VolvoGroup) November 3, 2021

Last month, it was announced that Holcim had signed "a ground-breaking agreement".

    

HD #HyundaiXiteSolution, owner of #HyundaiInfracore & its #DEVELON brand; & @GravisRobotics, have signed a deal with @Holcim outlining a partnership for development & commercialisation of #autonomous tech & its deployment across Holcim's quarrying ops https://t.co/L3xNDwSaQq pic.twitter.com/YPQGGRR2v6

— International Mining (@im_mining) April 11, 2025

HDX and Gravis Robotics are collaborating to implement jointly developed autonomous technology using Develon’s equipment across Holcim’s operations, with a particular focus on quarry environments including: 

* Truck loading of blasted rock for efficient material transport 

* Feeding hoppers of mobile crushers and screeners with extracted materials 

* Confined material handling at asphalt and aggregate plants 

* Stockyard management, optimizing material flow and storage. 

Holcim’s quarrying and processing sites combined with their operational expertise provides the consortium with a global platform that can be used to enable the integration of autonomous heavy construction equipment. 

Through the adoption of autonomous machinery, Holcim want to realize increased productivity through increased output and consistency, increased safety by reducing the number of people on site…

Quarry operatives at Holcim UK, and planning committees, be warned.

Devon quarry hosts UK’s first driverless dump truck

The number of people employed by the quarrying industry has been in decline for many years, as we posted back in 2012, when we pointed to the fact that in 1968, 41 and 148 people worked at the nearby Blackhill and Rockbeare sites respectively, and wrote: 

Even over the last 10 years there has been a dramatic fall in employee numbers in sand and gravel, with the UK Minerals Yearbook reporting over 8000 employees in 2001, but under 3000 in 2010. The HSE says the "industry has difficulty attracting and recruiting staff" and "anecdotal evidence suggests an ageing workforce". 

Will the use of autonomous vehicles hasten that decline still further? 

This week, Sibelco’s china-clay Cornwood Quarry, near Ivybridge in Devon, hosted the UK launch of an autonomous articulated dump truck "designed to help futureproof the effectiveness and competitiveness of quarrying operations within the minerals and aggregates industry". 

The demonstration, from Chepstow Plant International and Bell Equipment, used technology from Xtonomy, a German company specialising in autonomous haulage systems: 

The development of autonomous driving capability opens the door to a range of operational efficiency, safety, environmental, and employee benefits to underpin the sector going forward.

Commenting on the Bell B40E dump truck, which also uses HVO instead of diesel, Ben Uphill, operations director for Kingsteignton Cluster at quarry-owner Sibelco, said: 

We envisage many benefits from having access to this sector-first autonomous ADT solution. The minerals and aggregates sector must embrace technology as a way of continually delivering improvements across our daily operations and cost base.

 

Claims and more claims, but who stands to gain the most?

Safeguarding jobs is the old chestnut Aggregate Industries is wheeling out to support its plans to dig up an East Devon farm and haul the spoils across Woodbury Common; last week’s Express & Echo article – East Devon quarry block ‘will put jobs at risk’ – is just the latest example:

THE livelihoods of East Devon quarry employees will be at risk if proposals for a 100-acre quarry on the outskirts of Ottery St Mary do not go ahead.

Officials from Aggregate Industries, which runs quarries at Blackhill on Woodbury Common, and Venn Ottery, have confirmed that this is the reality if they cannot proceed with their plans to quarry Straitgate Farm near Daisymount roundabout.

It is not clear exactly how many jobs could be affected but it is thought to be less than 10.

This argument, and we have written about this before, may have washed in the past, when hundreds of jobs were at stake, but not any more; any local jobs secured by AI's plans should be offset against the farming jobs at risk and the negative impact on other local businesses. In any case, AI has other local reserves and resources. The jobs argument is a red herring; trucking as-dug aggregate across the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths, risking drinking water supplies, and airport safeguarding issues are not.

And whilst AI claims livelihoods are at risk, its Swiss-parent Holcim claims:

At Holcim, we work together to serve our neighbouring communities. That's us: http://t.co/bMzclDf0Gx pic.twitter.com/cLrLWBBW1l
— Holcim (@HolcimLtd) March 19, 2015

Sustainable. That's us.

Being part of the solutions to the challenges of our time.

Holcim has a long history of sustainable development. Our continuous commitment to mitigate CO2 emissions, provide waste management solutions, use alternative resources, and improve quality of life in our communities, started many years ago. Our sustainability efforts today concentrate on climate, resources, and communities...

Which all seems very admirable, but its plans for East Devon, with its polluting 1,000,000 mile haulage scheme to a site of European importance to nature conservation, are the antithesis of such claims.

What is true is that the parties that stand to gain the most from all this are a long way from East Devon.

Holcim-Lafarge works to save merger: http://t.co/EjB9lrxCmG. Russian #billionaire Filaret Galchev owns 10% of Holcim and has $3.4 billion
— BBG Billionaires (@BBGBillionaires) March 19, 2015

Activity at Hillhead again

DCC has finally received a planning application for Aggregate Industries' bagging plant at the block works near Uffculme - "a direct replacement for the Company’s former aggregate bagging plant, located at Bishops Court Quarry in Exeter". AI had been running a bagged aggregates distribution operation out of the mothballed Hillhead Quarry without permission. Even after DCC had served AI notice to clear the site, there were local reports that AI continued to deliver bagged aggregates to Hillhead. DCC said:

We are keeping the situation under review and the company has been served notice requiring them to provide us with information on land ownership should the need to take formal action arise.

Hillhead was not cleared by the deadline imposed by DCC, but AI has evidently secured an extension. Is AI's haphazard modus operandi any way for a multinational business to be conducting its affairs, any way to be integrating itself into the community it disrupts?

An AI spokesman claimed that if the bagging plant went ahead around 12 jobs would be created:

Owing to changes in our leases, we have decided to expand operations out of Hillhead Quarry. It's good news and will bring jobs to the area - although until the business is fully permitted we won't be quite sure on numbers…

How a plant that's a "direct replacement" can create 12 jobs, only AI can answer. According to AI's planning statement "4.1 There are 12 full time employees associated with the existing concrete products factory. 4.2 The proposed aggregate bagging plant would employ 12 people...". Good to see AI's PR machine hard at work.

AI's application can be found here. DCC will accept comments until 24 May.

Jobs - after years of decline that argument no longer has merit

Any application to quarry Straitgate would, no doubt, use the argument of "jobs for local people" - not new jobs, as Aggregate Industries have stated there would not be any, but the safeguarding of jobs.

However, the number of jobs safeguarded would in fact be small - earlier in the year there were just nine employees at Blackhill Quarry, and at-risk Straitgate Farm itself employs four. A modern sand and gravel quarry does not support anywhere near, say, the 230 jobs offered by a tungsten mine.

The jobs argument may have had merit at the Public Inquiry in 1968 to support English China Clay's application to quarry Straitgate, Blackhill, and Colaton Raleigh, but, in those days 41 people worked at Blackhill, and a further 148 at Rockbeare.

Nationally the sand and gravel business has been in decline ever since, and "consolidation through mergers and acquisitions has seen in excess of 5,000 quarrying companies in 1960 reduced to some 200 currently" of which Tarmac, Lafarge, Aggregate Industries, RMC and Hanson now account for over 80% of output. Even over the last 10 years there has been a dramatic fall in employee numbers in sand and gravel, with the UK Minerals Yearbook reporting over 8000 employees in 2001, but under 3000 in 2010. The HSE says the "industry has difficulty attracting and recruiting staff" and "anecdotal evidence suggests an ageing workforce".

The economic ramifications of a Straitgate Quarry on the wider area would be far greater than the immediate loss of the four farm jobs, and the extract from a DCC document below highlights the "Impacts of Mineral Development on the Economy". For Ottery St Mary and surrounding communities it is clear that the "Adverse Impacts" would far outweigh any of the "Opportunities". 

NIMBYism

Councillors should take care before dismissing local consultation respondents as nothing more than NIMBYs. The BBC article "Would YOU live next to a NIMBY?" considers that:

"To be called a NIMBY can be a devastating insult, undermining one's well argued case and labelling it as simply a statement of self-interest (...) But environmental lawyer Professor Peter Kunzlik says the instinct to be a NIMBY can be valuable (...) "One of the slogans that came after the Rio Summit was Think Globally, Act Locally. Governments claim to want everybody to do that, and so far as the environment is concerned, where do you experience it? It's where you live. So if you're going to take issues seriously, you do so locally, otherwise it becomes a bit hypothetical.""

A survey by The Saint Consulting Group (SCG) found that "nearly nine out of 10 people in Britain are NIMBYs". In fact "almost a quarter of all UK households have objected to a planning application of one kind or another in their local area over the last 12 months". In other words, for the very people who elect councillors into office, the act of defending their home and neighbourhood against threats from local government or Swiss multinational giants is natural. It is certainly no more selfish than the profit motives of the world's largest cement producer. 

And it's hardly surprising when you hear of plans passed such as the one in Plymouth last year - it's obviously not just DCC that doesn't listen to local concerns. Would the councillors who voted for the waste incinerator and its 95m chimney stack, just 60m from the closest home in a socially deprived part of the City, have voted differently if they had lived in one of the 450 homes within 250m of the site?

Whether one agrees or not with its conclusions, the think-tank Policy Exchange recognised in a recent paper that "...local people see many costs and few benefits from new developments". "As 'neighbourhood' is people’s number one priority for homes, many NIMBYs are not selfish or unreasonable but defending their property rights" and "the legitimate fears of NIMBYs must be acknowledged, rather than NIMBYs being insulted".

According to SCG "quarries remain one of the most disliked forms of development behind casinos, power plants and landfill sites". When the BGS warn "Quarrying can significantly deflate the perceived and actual value of local property prices by reducing the desirability and demand for housing near the quarry as a result of noise, traffic, safety, dust, and visual intrusion concerns observed or envisaged by potential purchasers" are councillors surprised that not everybody might be in favour? Would they be happy living next to all that? Losing value on their home? And then losing their water supply too?

SCG advice to mineral operators is to "engage with the local community and educate members of the public (and likely opponents) about how important the aggregates sector is, and the positive impact that a quarry can have on the community." But if it won't bring any new jobs, the 384 consultation respondents would be interested to hear from Aggregate Industries what positive impacts a quarry at Straitgate Farm would have for the population of Ottery and West Hill. And they don't just want talk about restoration, because those plans have a habit of changing or simply not happening at all.

Signs produced by
Ottery Quarry
Action Group

SCG adds "Operators need to establish close ties with their local communities early on, as it is much easier to present the industry’s message to local residents whose position has not already been influenced, than it is to change their preformed opinions." Yet at the recent consultation Aggregate Industries was nowhere to be seen, and was not even prepared to share the working or restoration plans drawn up for the site. "Preformed opinions"? Sorry - too late.

As it was DCC pitching northern and southern sites against each other in the consultation, respondents did not deserve to be brushed aside with the misconceived accusation of NIMBYism. It's only too apparent from the documentation that locals know more about their locality than either Aggregate Industries or DCC. Councillors should appreciate people taking the time to furnish the facts, rather than criticise.

Local people are pragmatic enough to accept the need for sand and gravel, but Devon has over nine million tonnes already reserved and is using less than half a million tonnes each year. "But don't we need to build for economic recovery"? Like Spain, Ireland et al?

Strike ballot at AI

If the company treats its workers like this, what hope would there be for our community?

GMB is in dispute with the Company following a history of total disregard of our members' right to be consulted about major changes. Aggregate Industries has a track record of imposing not consulting, telling not asking and, in general, treating its loyal and committed employees with no dignity or respect. 

Aggregate Industries, however, said the financial climate meant it had no choice but to alter the pay date...

One can understand GMB's position. Workers are being forced to subsidise AI and its £13.8bn parent, "by a few days each month", without the company first seeking agreement. The Employment Rights Act 1996 makes it "unlawful for an employer to make any deduction from the wages of a worker employed by him unless the worker has agreed in writing to the deduction being made or it is required by law".