Quarry operator warns: ‘Don’t complain if there’s noise, dust and vibrations’

Gallagher Aggregates has issued a warning to Taylor Wimpey over the house builders' plans for a new development near Hermitage Quarry in Barming, Kent.

Good vibrations? Boss warns would-be residents of planned new homes right next to quarry they can have no complaints https://t.co/pkSqedqT9L pic.twitter.com/xLkMNu6hXu

— KentOnline (@Kent_Online) June 4, 2020

Don’t complain if there’s noise, dust and vibrations - that’s the message from a quarry operator after a developer put forward plans for a new estate just 100m from its site.

Gallagher Aggregates has warned Maidstone Borough Council that any complaints from future residents about its operation should be given "absolutely no weight" if the development goes ahead.

Taylor Wimpey – the company oh so keen to sell those 187 quarry-side homes, and perhaps less concerned about the future well-being of those who buy one – commissioned a noise and vibration report. This found that although there would be an adverse impact on the closest homes, it "would not be prohibitive" if measures such as acoustic glazing and garden fencing were put in place.

Future residents may need to do more than keep their windows shut. A councillor warned:

They will feel it. All of us have felt the effects of the blasts. If it is approved, I hope they will inform people up front they will feel the vibrations.

Gallagher Aggregates won approval to extend the quarry for a further 23 years back in 2013. At the time, we posted When ancient woodland becomes the price for crushed aggregate.

But who wouldn't be surprised if Taylor Wimpey's housing plans were approved, given that the impact on people runs secondary to those of big business.

It was a similar case in Devon when the tin and tungsten mine at Drakelands was approved. At the time we posted how the health impacts from "56 households and up to 103 individuals" from blasting and low frequency vibration were cast aside, after officers recommended approval saying:

The protection to be afforded to residents has to be balanced with the reality of the scale of this particular mining operation which is one of the largest mines in Western Europe.

Balancing the reality in favour of Australian mining interests didn't help in the end. Drakelands, lest we forget, was one of the largest mines in Western Europe – right up until the point it ceased trading and appointed administrators.

Record noise nuisance on your phone

The Noise App has been designed to simplify noise reporting and investigation.

Since it was launched in 2015, the app has processed more than 50,000 noise reports and is used by 100-plus organisations including police forces, councils, housing associations and construction companies.

It's now hoped the app "could help freight operators build better relationships with local residents".

Because it is hassle free, with no expensive or specialist equipment needed, it is popular with residents and the professionals investigating noise problems.

It is another one of the "publicly-funded apps helping to streamline services, save money and make citizens’ lives easier". One council says the Noise App "has revolutionised how we deal with noise nuisance cases". You can understand why. As another council using the Noise App said, in an article describing how a couple were fined £18,000 after complaints about noise:

If a complaint is made to the council, we have a duty to investigate it, and wherever possible we try to resolve the issue amicably.

As we posted in Noise, dust, statutory nuisance, the leaflet produced for Buckfastleigh Town Council - in response to complaints about Whitecleave Quarry - clarifies the law on noise:

Local authorities have a wide range of legal powers to act against noise. They have a duty to deal with any noise they consider to be a ‘statutory nuisance’. You have a right to request monitoring at your property or other location where noise affects you.

There is no specific decibel level or limit to determine nuisance. If it is found to be 'statutory nuisance' the authority must serve an abatement notice – which is an order to deal with the nuisance. This order may demand the noise stops altogether.

A quarry in Cornwall was served such an abatement notice last year. The same article in which this was reported gives examples of How loud is loud?

Refusal recommended for Tewkesbury quarry application on noise and dust grounds

Planning officers at Gloucestershire County Council have recommended refusal for a sand and gravel quarry in Church End, near Twyning. The applicant proposed to:

extract 98,000 tonnes of sand and gravel from 3.04 hectares and restore site to agriculture, amenity and nature conservation uses with imported fill over a period of 2.5 years

The "minimum extraction stand-off margins would be 60m from the nearest residential property" - not unlike the wholly inadequate stand-offs proposed at Straitgate, an operation that would last 10-12 years.

Despite the modest scale of the Church End scheme, Gloucestershire planning officers concluded:

8.1 It is recommended that planning permission be REFUSED for the following reasons: 

1. The proposal fails to demonstrate that the noise from mineral extraction operations can be mitigated to an acceptable level so as not to interfere with local residents’ use and enjoyment of their property contrary to Minerals Local Plan policies DC1 and E14, the Tewkesbury Borough Local Plan policy EVT3 and Paragraph 144 of the NPPF. 

2. The proposal would have an unacceptable, adverse impact on the environment arising from the impact of dust for those living, visiting and working in the vicinity of the site contrary to Minerals Local Plan Policy DC1 and Paragraph 144 of the NPPF... 

Noise, dust, statutory nuisance

Whilst we wait for Aggregate Industries to rewrite its planning applications - right the wrongs, bury the bad bits, create some new fiction - look what’s been going on in Buckfastleigh, and the joys that quarrying can bring to a community. Buckfastleigh Town Council has produced a noise leaflet, because:

The Council has received a number of complaints from local residents about the noise coming from Whitecleave Quarry and we understand that noise has disturbed some people in areas of the parish not usually affected by activities at the quarry.

The Council decided to produce this leaflet to provide information to those affected by noise to tell them how they should register their complaints and provide a facility to complain anonymously if required. This information has not previously been made available to residents by Devon County Council, Teignbridge District Council or the quarry operator.

As the leaflet points out:

There is no specific decibel level or limit to determine nuisance. If it is found to be 'statutory nuisance' the authority must serve an abatement notice – which is an order to deal with the nuisance. This order may demand the noise stops altogether.

For those unfamiliar with the term, 'statutory nuisance' is a decision based on what the average reasonable person would find unacceptable; it is a criminal offence. East Devon District Council has more information on Common Law Nuisance and Statutory Nuisance:

In common law there is something termed a 'nuisance' which can be defined as a matter which is an unreasonable and substantial interference on the use and enjoyment of a person's property.

A statutory nuisance, under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, must fall within one of the following categories: i.e.

(g) noise emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance;

or for that matter

(d) any dust, steam, smell or other effluvia arising on industrial, trade or business premises and being prejudicial to health or a nuisance;

(e) any accumulation or deposit which is prejudicial to health or a nuisance;

As the Environmental Protection Act 1990 makes clear:

it shall be the duty of every local authority... where a complaint of a statutory nuisance is made to it by a person living within its area, to take such steps as are reasonably practicable to investigate the complaint.

For those interested in the matter, here are two more links: Statutory nuisances - how councils deal with complaints, and Friends of the Earth - Statutory Nuisance.

On the face of it, and without appropriate standoffs, the average reasonable person would find much of what a quarry brings to communities to be unacceptable. Any operation at Straitgate would grind to a halt if it became a 'statutory nuisance', but with some homes as close as 70m to its previously proposed extraction zone - reneging on assurances made by AI in 2013 of a 100m minimum standoff - AI is already setting itself up for problems. AI says:

The potential for fugitive dust emissions from the proposed excavation of sand and gravel at Straitgate Farm is minimal due to the inherently high moisture content of the ‘as dug’ material. 11.8

Here's Blackhill Quarry down the road; same material, same 'dust mitigation policy', same operator:

Is DCC Minerals Planning any help in all this? No. The new Plan cares more about minerals, and multinational cement conglomerates, than local people. It proposes Mineral Safeguarding Areas all over Devon "for the protection of mineral resources" with buffers delineated around such areas which "ensures that account is taken of development beyond the extent of the mineral resource or site that could constrain existing or future mineral operation". 

DCC says the buffer "reflects the characteristics of each resource"; ball clay has 100m, china clay, sand and gravel 250m; the buffers "are considered to reasonably reflect the differing degree of impact of extraction of different groups of minerals" - in itself, an admission that sand and gravel operations can have impacts 250m away. Absurdly, no such standoffs are specified to protect people. DCC says:

Buffer zones are one means of minimising adverse effects... but the choice of mitigation measures will be dependent on specific circumstances and it is inappropriate to require buffer zones for all development.

However, the industry - in the form of Imerys Minerals responding to the Minerals Plan - has expressed: 

Concern that the 100m and 250m buffer zones will be insufficient to avoid issues arising from the proximity of mining and residential / other uses. To avoid conflict and nuisance claims arising from ball clay and china clay operations the buffer may need to increase. 

In other words, whilst Imerys are concerned that even 250m may be insufficient to avoid nuisance claims, AI is hoping to get away with 70m. Keep a copy of Buckfastleigh’s noise leaflet - it may come in useful.