Straitgate’s ‘revolutionary’ working scheme not being deployed at Penslade

Holcim UK (formerly Aggregate Industries) doesn’t intend to deploy Straitgate’s "revolutionary" working scheme at Penslade. 

For a scheme that allows more material to be recovered, isn’t that funny? How many aggregate companies would forgo another metre's depth of material given half a chance? 

For the company’s new application for Penslade – where there are few people nearby wholly reliant on private water supplies: 

4.1.3 The base of mineral extraction has been set at 1m above maximum recorded groundwater levels. 

One metre. It’s as clear and simple as that, and the Environment Agency has already said it has no objection to the application. 

Oh, what a different story it has been for Straitgate Farm, where for 12 months back in 2015 the company wouldn’t even come clean that the base of mineral extraction has been set at 0m above maximum recorded groundwater levels – or at least an imprecise model of them – and that a "revolutionary" seasonal working scheme is to be deployed: As we posted at the time: 

AI's seasonal working scheme has now been described as "revolutionary"; not by us, but by someone on the other side closely connected to all this. 

How exciting! Local people will be thrilled. Thrilled at the prospect of being part of an experiment, where their drinking water supplies are reliant on the success of this "revolutionary" scheme; a scheme that relies on groundwater levels falling over the summer months to allow AI to quarry down to the maximum water table level, rather than leaving the 1m unquarried buffer above the maximum water table typically employed to safeguard surrounding water supplies.

So, a 1m buffer is to be retained at Penslade to protect the water environment, whilst a 0m buffer is to be retained at Straitgate – where there are more than 100 people reliant on private water supplies, as well as farms and businesses. 

No, it doesn’t make any sense to us either. 

It’s a story we won’t dredge up again, although it has been covered in these posts from 2015 to 2018 for anybody at all interested: 

Clarification from the EA 

How many AI suits does it take to have a meeting with the EA? 

Finally, in writing, how AI thinks it can wrestle 1.2 million tonnes from Straitgate 

AI was asked a very simple question

No wonder AI wants to keep Straitgate’s groundwater data secret

 

AI’s water monitoring at Straitgate being undertaken incorrectly at several properties

To win permission to quarry Straitgate Farm, Aggregate Industries entered into a legal agreement to monitor the private water supplies of surrounding properties for the lifetime of the development. 

Part of this agreement also stipulates that 12 months of chemical analysis of water supplies be performed before any quarrying starts, to produce a baseline so that any potential changes in groundwater quality from future mineral workings can be detected. 

Aggregate Industries’ water consultants BCL Hydro are now nine months into this monitoring period. 

In an email to us last month, the consultants confirmed that all the samples taken for analysis are "untreated groundwater". 

It stands to reason. Chemical analysis is meant to provide an accurate baseline of the natural quality of the groundwater, not a baseline that is masked or altered by treatment systems. 

It now transpires, however, that "untreated groundwater" is not what’s being sampled from at least three of the 19 or so properties being monitored. 

It looks like Aggregate Industries and its consultants have fallen at the first hurdle, before any quarrying has even started. 

The nine months of data collected from these properties is invalid. The owners do not have the protection afforded to them by an accurate 12-month baseline of untreated groundwater data, independent of their treatment process, to evidence any potential future claim for "derogation, contamination or interference" to their supply. 

Devon County Council has been informed.

Another quarry accused of disrupting water supplies

In 2016, we posted Look what happens when a quarry company is accused of polluting a couple's drinking water supply: 

...everything changed and it was clear the spring had been contaminated because the water was coming out brown and dirty...[which] coincided with the operators of the quarry near our home being served with statutory notices for quarrying outside their permitted area

Now, it looks as though it’s happened again elsewhere, allegedly caused this time by Dareduff Hill Quarry in East Ayrshire to a home in East Renfrewshire. 

According to GlasgowLive: 

Ali says part of the planning agreement carried conditions that her private water supply would be protected - but already, she says, it has been affected. 

She said: "It's basically an ancient spring out of the ground, where you won't get any planning that says where it comes from, because nobody knows - but it's been here for as long as this building has been up, for hundreds of years. 

"The water goes naturally into a tank that's in the ground. This farm used to be a dairy farm, so it supplied this whole place with water. And it's never been a drama. I only ran out of water once years ago when we had a big drought. It all works fine, it's dead old-fashioned but I've never wanted to or had to change it. 

"So while this proposal was going on, I had contacted MPs. I contacted Planning and everyone has ignored me, nobody's done anything. On the back of that, both East Renfrewshire Council and East Ayrshire Council are going to get 7p a ton from the aggregate that's taken out of this quarry, so there's money involved for the councils too." 

She added: "They've now started the digging. I wasn't informed about it at all. 

"Part of the concessions that were approved in the planning stage was that the water at this farm [West Carswell Farm] had to be sorted, and that West Carswell was either to be connected to the mains or some other solution. But nothing's happened."

Ali said plumbing experts believe disturbance to the ground from the launch of the quarry works may have put “muck” in the water with the silt clogging old pipes. She added: "There's water in the tank... but there's no water getting to my property."

As we said back in 2016: 

At Straitgate, water supplies for 100 people, 3 farms and Grade I Cadhay would be in the hands of one digger driver. What could possibly go wrong? And - with an extensive catalogue of ignored warnings from local residents going back years - how many nationals would cover the story if it did?

 

Renfrewshire woman devastated as quarry works begin near dream countryside home.https://t.co/zWOHLHnXz1

— Glasgow Live (@Glasgow_Live) December 3, 2024

Two months on – PZ2017/03 is STILL underwater

On 12 February this year, we posted Water level at borehole PZ2017/03 rises to GROUND LEVEL.

By 18 February, the situation was even worse:

Last week – more than two months on, and now with monitoring equipment finally installed – the top of the piezometer was still underwater:

The sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants at Straitgate Farm starts on average 2.3m below ground level. The company’s permission only allows quarrying above the maximum water table.

Clearly this is one area where extraction should not be taking place.

So, how close to this area could extraction be permitted? Aggregate Industries is in no position to say. As we previously posted: 

Piezometer PZ2017/03, at the NE corner of Phase 1 and SE corner of Phase 2, is obviously unable to provide any meaningful information on how far to the west of this point the maximum groundwater levels would allow sufficient depth for mineral extraction, given water levels here have reached ground level. 

Clearly, therefore, there need to be further boreholes drilled at the redrawn eastern boundary of the extraction area – to fulfil Condition 30, ie. so that there are piezometers at "each corner of each working sub-phase".

Wettest 18 months on record – and still no groundwater monitoring at Straitgate

This week, the Environment Agency reported the wettest February in Devon and Cornwall, and the wettest 12 months in England, since records began in 1871. The FT went a step further, and reported that England has been drenched with the wettest 18 months since records began in 1836.  

The Planning Inspectors stipulated in their appeal decision that the estimated maximum water table at Straitgate Farm, the MWWT, the level the company is permitted to quarry down to, would be updated to reflect higher groundwater readings.

What is Aggregate Industries doing about this? Absolutely nothing at all. The company has not done any monitoring of groundwater levels at Straitgate for 2 years.

 

It's not the first time we've posted about this sorry situation. In December, we posted ‘Exceptionally high’ rainfall – and still no water monitoring at Straitgate, and last April, Wettest March since 1981 – and Straitgate groundwater levels not monitored.

Groundwater levels continue to rise at Straitgate

This week, the groundwater level at PZ2017/02 – a borehole that sits on the eastern boundary of the proposed extraction area – was 30cm higher than reported here last week.

It now sits just 0.90m below ground level – a new maximum. 

As previously posted, the sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants at Straitgate Farm starts on average 2.3m below ground level. 

The company’s permission only permits quarrying above the maximum water table. 

Another borehole showing ZERO depth of available resource

The sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants at Straitgate Farm starts on average 2.3m below ground level.

The company’s permission only permits quarrying above the maximum water table. 

Clearly, therefore, in areas where the maximum groundwater level is closer than 2.3m below the ground surface, there is likely to be no sand and gravel available for the company to recover. 

In practice, to make it at all worthwhile – bearing in mind the costs, ecologically or otherwise, involved in stripping, storing, restoring more than 2.3m of 'best and most versatile' topsoil, subsoils and overburden – the maximum groundwater would need to be no nearer than 3.3m below ground level to be able to extract even 1 metre’s worth of sand and gravel. 

Earlier this month we posted how the water level at borehole PZ2017/03 has risen to ground level, and how Aggregate Industries has been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – planning inspectors included. 

Obviously, there is no resource available to the company for an indeterminate area around this borehole on the eastern boundary of the extraction area. It's now the same for the area around another borehole. 

Last week, the groundwater level at borehole PZ2017/02 was just 1.19m below ground level. This is again on the eastern boundary - as shown below:

   

This groundwater level is higher, by our estimation, than the borehole’s previously recorded maximum on 18/02/2020. It is notable that levels in this location have only been monitored between 2017 and 2022, and not, like a number of the other locations, during the wet winter of 2013-2014. 

It’s not altogether surprising that the previous maximum has been exceeded, given the recent rainfall:

Last February was one of the driest on record for England & Wales with many locations seeing less than 10% of normal rain.

This February will be one of the wettest, many places will record more than 200%.

Extremes driven by climate change and things will get more extreme. pic.twitter.com/3xPTqh8soj

— Dave Throup (@DaveThroup) February 18, 2024

This all ties in with what we said in 2021, when we posted Depth of available resource at Straitgate is in places ZERO. 

Borehole PZ2017/02 is where Aggregate Industries plans to locate infiltration trenches to stop downslope flooding. Clearly, with water levels this high, those trenches can't work as intended. Again, as we posted in 2021, Infiltration areas to stop flooding couldn't be 3m deep – without breaching MWWT and in 2018, AI’s infiltration plans can’t work either – with groundwater this close to the surface. 

Ordinarily, if Aggregate Industries were monitoring the site, another calculation of the extrapolated maximum winter water table, the MWWT, would now be triggered, the company’s permitted base of extraction would have to be moved upwards and the available tonnage moved downwards. 

For reasons we can all guess, the company is not currently monitoring groundwater levels across the site.

Planning conditions mean AI must drill more water monitoring boreholes

In order to protect surrounding private water supplies, Condition 30 of Aggregate Industries’ permission to quarry Straitgate Farm stipulates: 

Piezometer coverage across the site shall be, at any time, no less than the proposed one piezometer at each corner of each working sub-phase. Piezometers which are lost through quarry working shall be replaced within seven days. Continuous monitoring of all site piezometers (and interpolation between them) shall be used to ensure, during working, that the base level to which the quarry is worked is no closer to the measured groundwater level than 1 metre. 

Our emphasis.

Three working phases have been proposed, with two sub-phases in each.

Even as things currently stand, there is no piezometer on the SE corner of Phase 1. 

Furthermore, it is patently clear – and has been for years – that there are large areas on the eastern boundary that cannot be quarried without breaching the MWWT, given that groundwater has now been recorded just 1.19m, 0m, 1.26m and 1.59m below the surface at PZ2017/02, PZ2017/03, SG1990/021 and SG1990/012 respectively. 

The eastern boundary of Phase 1 and Phase 2 will therefore need to be redrawn.

Piezometer PZ2017/03, at the NE corner of Phase 1 and SE corner of Phase 2, is obviously unable to provide any meaningful information on how far to the west of this point the maximum groundwater levels would allow sufficient depth for mineral extraction, given water levels here have reached ground level. 

Clearly, therefore, there need to be further boreholes drilled at the redrawn eastern boundary of the extraction area – to fulfil Condition 30, ie. so that there are piezometers at "each corner of each working sub-phase". 

At least 12 months of groundwater monitoring in these new boreholes would then be required to provide any meaningful baseline. 

Without new piezometers in these locations there can be no way "to ensure, during working, that the base level to which the quarry is worked is no closer to the measured groundwater level than 1 metre."

Water level at borehole PZ2017/03 rises to GROUND LEVEL

Following the post AI has been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – planning inspectors included, the water level in PZ2017/03 was last week found sitting at ground level. 

The water level has no doubt reached ground level in this location before – but is not something that has been disclosed by Aggregate Industries.

Remember, the sand and gravel that Aggregate Industries wants starts about 2.3m on average below this level. 

What are groundwater levels doing in other boreholes across the site? Have maximum levels been exceeded again, given all the recent rainfall? 

No one has any idea because Aggregate Industries is not monitoring them. 

This matters, because the maximum water table across the site – the MWWT, guesstimated using previously recorded levels from this borehole and others – will not only form the base of the permitted excavation, to protect the groundwater supplying nearby private water supplies, but will also determine how surface water is managed, to avoid flooding and maintain stream flows.

Last month, Aggregate Industries made clear that it only intended to monitor the boreholes across the excavation site once a month using manual dipping. 

Groundwater levels can rise quickly at Straitgate Farm. Borehole readings show that even from a low base they can reach maximum levels in just 4 weeks. Continuous data loggers, as Aggregate Industries and its consultants have used in the past, are therefore essential for capturing these movements. Clearly, the company doesn’t want to do any more than the barest minimum. It certainly doesn’t want to discover that the MWWT has been exceeded again.

AI has been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – planning inspectors included

Nowhere in the mountain of documentation – either for the planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm, or the subsequent 2-week public inquiry – did Aggregate Industries make known that groundwater on the east of the proposed extraction area – an area designated a soakaway for flood mitigation – can at times sit just 16 cm or less? below the surface. 

Fancy omitting such a crucial piece of information. 

Aggregate Industries has not monitored groundwater at Straitgate Farm since March 2022. A curious lack of inquisitiveness, you might think, given how wet the last few months have been. 

But Aggregate Industries doesn’t want to know about any elevated water levels that might reduce the amount of recoverable material. 

However, curiosity can get the better of some people. 

At borehole PZ2017/03 – shown on this map, on this hydrograph, and below – groundwater was found this week to be sitting just 16 cm below the ground surface. 

16 cm.

We have been warning about this issue on multiple occasions – including here, here, here, here, etc – but even we didn't realise just how close the groundwater actually sits below the ground surface*. 

Aggregate Industries’ consultants, on the other hand – who, in addition to relying on an automatic data logger, have been manually dipping this borehole quarterly since 2017 – would have known. They would have seen with their own eyes how close the water sat below the ground surface, but chose not to share the information more widely – not with Devon County Council, not with the Environment Agency, not with the Planning Inspectors at the Public Inquiry. 

Having been alerted to the elevated groundwater levels in this location, Devon County Council raised the issue with the company back in 2018, when PZ2017/03 recorded its maximum height of water of 138.68 mAOD on 27/04/2018. In a now superseded document, Aggregate Industries wrote:

Results from routine quarterly monitoring in April 2018 identified groundwater levels in localised piezometers on the eastern extraction area boundary higher than those depicted by the existing MWWT contour plot. Consequently, Devon County Council has determined this to be a material matter in that it has requested that the effects of these results be assessed to determine the effects on the quantity of mineral resource. Its position is defined in the following extract from an email dated 1st August 2018 (S Penaluna, Devon CC) as a: “......need to know exactly which areas might be excluded for reasons of groundwater protection and these would need to be indicated on a plan.” 

But the Council was misled, fobbed off, or lied to, when the company claimed: 

1. The extraction area, as shown on the Wood E&IS plan, remains unchanged... 

4. The change [in mineral resource], moreover, results in no area being “excluded for reasons of groundwater protection” but merely a localised effect on the depth of working in a localised (eastern) part of the site. 

What’s the big deal? Condition 28 of the permission allows the design of the base of the quarry to be changed to reflect revised estimations of the maximum water table: 

Prior to the commencement of any soil stripping on any phase of the development, a review of the Maximum Winter Water Table (MWWT) grid (being the hydrogeologically modelled surface of the maximum winter water table based on the highest recorded winter groundwater levels) shall be submitted to the Mineral Planning Authority for its approval in writing.

In Aggregate Industries' latest resource assessment for the site: 

The MWWT will ultimately form the base of the workable deposit, and any variation will impact the potential resource. 

But what’s most concerning is that borehole PZ2017/03 is in an area designated for flood mitigation, an area where it is intended to dig a trench, with a 1m buffer above the maximum groundwater level, to hold back surface water runoff and allow it to soak away.

   

Surface water will not soak away as designed with groundwater sitting just 16 cm below the surface. 

Why is it important to get the management of surface water right? You only have to look at the ponding problems at Aggregate Industries' Houndaller site for the answer.

There can therefore be no confidence that the planned trenches to stop downslope flooding will act as intended, and every confidence a water body will be created. 

As we have already posted, quarrying at Straitgate can only be permitted if: 

25. No water body shall be created within the site other than the approved weigh bridge lagoon.   

Without drilling another borehole further into the site, and implementing another period of monitoring, no one has any idea where the maximum groundwater levels are in the area surrounding PZ2017/03 – Aggregate Industries’ MWWT is at best a guesstimate. 

What should be done? 

In 1967 they knew exactly what to do – they left this area alone. Aggregate Industries should be forced to do the same.

*The exact depth to water from the ground surface could not previously be calculated using piezometer groundwater level data in mAOD, because a precise surface elevation figure for the borehole had not been supplied by Aggregate Industries.

‘Exceptionally high’ rainfall – and still no water monitoring at Straitgate

Mineral extraction at Straitgate Farm is permitted to a level down to a guesstimate of the maximum water table – the MWWT. 

In their appeal decision, the Planning Inspectors said: 

the MWWT grid would be updated as necessary to reflect any higher groundwater readings.

Updated as necessary. Planning condition 28 for the Straitgate permission states: 

Prior to the commencement of any soil stripping on any phase of the development, a review of the Maximum Winter Water Table (MWWT) grid (being the hydrogeologically modelled surface of the maximum winter water table based on the highest recorded winter groundwater levels) shall be submitted to the Mineral Planning Authority for its approval in writing. 

In April, we posted that Straitgate groundwater levels were currently not being monitored, despite having the wettest March since 1981. 

Last month, the Environment Agency – in its Monthly water situation report: England October 2023 – reported that rainfall in the South West over the period November 2022 to October 2023 has been "Exceptionally high". 

What impact has all this rainfall had on the water table at Straitgate? Has the MWWT been exceeded again – as it has been in the past? 

No one knows. Aggregate Industries has not monitored groundwater levels at Straitgate since March 2022, the best part of 2 years. 

The company has confirmed: 

...we are not currently undertaking water monitoring at Straitgate. This is because there is no requirement to monitor at present as we have not yet started to implement our planning permission and therefore, the monitoring requirements within that permission have not yet started... 

However, it will be our intention during the course of 2024 and 2025 to undertake the 12 months of baseline monitoring that is required, and to seek approval of the required schemes so that the permission can be implemented prior to the January 2026 deadline. 

The MWWT is meant to reflect the maximum water table. Clearly – absent almost 2 years of groundwater monitoring during exceptionally wet periods – there is a high chance it doesn't.

It was the wettest October across England since 2000 with rainfall totals well above average.

Average rainfall was 147.2mm which represents 192% of the 1961 to 1990 LTA for the time of year.

River levels responded rapidly.

See the report detail here 👇https://t.co/5yi16F1yaO pic.twitter.com/uKiDWsKHb8

— HydrometryEA (@HydrometryEA) November 16, 2023

Aggregate Industries delays PWS monitoring scheme visits

In June, Aggregate Industries wrote to Private Water Supply owners surrounding Straitgate Farm, advising that the company would visit them in the Autumn "to agree how, and where, we would monitor your private water supply". 

Aggregate Industries has now written to PWS owners, advising that the company is "not currently in a position to undertake the proposed visits to agree monitoring locations this Autumn. Instead we are hoping to undertake these visits during January 2024...".

Aggregate Industries was granted permission to quarry Straitgate Farm on appeal on 5 January 2023.

Aggregate Industries’ Straitgate update for July & August

Aggregate Industries has provided the following updates of what the company has apparently achieved over the last two months in relation to implementing its permission to quarry Straitgate Farm. 

In July: 

Nothing to update this month other than to report that following the third letter to owners of the PWSs in June we now have 26 of the 39 properties identified wanting to be part of the monitoring scheme.

In August: 

Just to confirm there are no updates for August.

Aggregate Industries’ Straitgate update for June

Aggregate Industries has provided the following update for the work the company carried out in June, in relation to its permission to quarry Straitgate Farm: 

In June the decision was taken to write a third time to owners of private water supplies who had not yet signed up to the monitoring scheme to give them a further chance to be part of the scheme. People who have already signed up were contacted to advise that visits to be undertaken as part of the preparation of the monitoring scheme would take place in the Autumn and that we would be in touch nearer the time. 

Other works related to the permission for the importation of material into Hillhead Quarry were that the widening of Clay Lane was completed and this is now open to two way traffic.

Aggregate Industries tries to wriggle out of Straitgate PWS monitoring obligations

It’s started already. Aggregate Industries is trying to wriggle out of its obligations.

If Aggregate Industries is to quarry Straitgate Farm, it has a legal obligation – as detailed in its Unilateral Undertaking – to monitor the numerous Private Water Supplies that surround the site, with agreements from the various owners, for the lifetime of the development. 

Condition 27 of the appeal decision says: 

Prior to the commencement of development, a water supply monitoring scheme shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Mineral Planning Authority. etc

The obligation to monitor surrounding PWS is irrespective of whether the owners of those supplies also have the use of a mains supply. The UU states: 

"Private Water Supply Interests" means those persons who own or occupy the Private Water Supplies as listed in Appendix 7 or as otherwise notified to the Owner [Aggregate Industries] pursuant to paragraph 1.1.3 of Schedule 1 to this Deed; 

OWNER'S OBLIGATIONS 

The Owner [Aggregate Industries] hereby covenants with the Council as follows... to send an Offer Letter to Private Water Supplies Interests offering to monitor their water supply in accordance with the Water Supply Monitoring Scheme for the lifetime of the Planning Permission and thereafter in accordance with the Post Restoration Water Supply Monitoring Scheme for the duration set out within the approved Post Restoration Water Supply Monitoring Scheme... 

It has, however, come to our attention that various properties with PWS were not in fact sent the company’s latest offer letter in April – referenced here – contrary to what the company tried to assure us. 

One PWS owner was forced to write to Aggregate Industries earlier this month: 

Please could you provide us with the most recent letter regarding the monitoring of PWS. We only have the original one dated 2 February 2023.

Aggregate Industries wrote back: 

From checking our files I can confirm that this was not sent to you as we have your property down as already having a mains water supply. If this is not correct and you would like to be part of the monitoring scheme then please let me know and I will update our records and ensure you are included.

But Aggregate Industries’ UU – which was necessary to make acceptable in planning terms, what was otherwise an unacceptable development – makes no mention of excluding properties with PWS from the monitoring scheme that already have a mains water supply. 

Of course, it would undoubtedly be more convenient for Aggregate Industries to exclude from monitoring those properties already with access to a mains supply, to ignore those springs, wells or boreholes that could be trashed by the company’s development; it would undoubtedly be more convenient to overlook the fact that a number of local PWS owners rely on both their mains and private supply, and that others wish to maintain their PWS in a usable state for potential future deployment. 

But, whatever the reason owners might have for protecting their PWS, it’s irrelevant. Aggregate Industries' legal obligations say all PWS interests must be offered monitoring. Simple. 

This doesn’t bode well for the future, that Aggregate Industries at this early stage is already trying to wriggle out of its obligations.

EDIT 18.7.23 

Aggregate Industries has now informed Devon County Council that: 

I can confirm that all PWS owners have been offered the chance to be part of the monitoring scheme and we are not excluding people who are on mains supply.

Aggregate Industries’ Straitgate update for April & May

As we first posted here, Aggregate Industries has pledged to provide monthly updates of the work it has carried out, or plans to carry out, in relation to Straitgate Farm, as it tries to satisfy the pre-commencement conditions and obligations that are required before mineral extraction can begin. 

Aggregate Industries' Planning Manager has this week provided the first update in two months of what the company has apparently undertaken in April and May: 

As you are aware we wrote to all the owners of the private water supplies in April setting out further commitments and asked that owners who wanted to be part of the monitoring scheme to let us know by the 31 May. 

Also in May we have responded to the Tree Preservation Order proposed by East Devon DC on land at Straitgate Farm. 

In actual fact, it has been brought to our attention that not all of the owners of private water supplies were contacted in April. 

The Planning Manager subsequently informed us that the company: 

...will be contacting PWS owners one further time in June.

AI U-turns on water charges – but seeks to reduce post-restoration monitoring

In February, Aggregate Industries wrote to local private water supply owners – those people now at risk of losing their drinking water due to the permitted quarry development at Straitgate Farm – with the offer of water monitoring, and remediation in the event of derogation, reminding them: 

For the avoidance of doubt, AIUK shall only be responsible for implementing the proposed solution and not for any subsequent charges, fees or any other costs associated with the solution once implemented.

For years, Aggregate Industries has refused to commit to paying ongoing water charges should surrounding supplies be lost as a result of its works, as we last posted here. 

However, following pressure from PWS owners at a meeting last month, Aggregate Industries has backtracked and now says: 

The company has reviewed its position and, in the unlikely event that properties have to be connected to a mains supply, will now agree to meet any ongoing costs for the supply of mains water to affected properties for the life of the planning permission and the post restoration monitoring period.

Why the company has taken so long to recognise the inequity of its previous stance is anybody’s guess. 

What happens after the post restoration monitoring period? Aggregate Industries says: 

All obligations and liabilities on the company cease. 

Why Aggregate Industries thinks its liability should end at this arbitrary point in time – if the company were to cause the loss of drinking water supplies – is not clear. 

In granting permission for the development, the Planning Inspectors wrote: 

176. The suggested condition for groundwater monitoring would impose a 10-year requirement for post-restoration monitoring, however the section 106 agreement provides for this period to be agreed in writing between the parties. We have accordingly not included reference to the post-restoration period for monitoring in the condition.

However, the company made clear at the above-mentioned meeting that it intends to press Devon County Council for "a break clause", to reduce the period for post-restoration monitoring. 

What’s the problem with that? As Professor Brassington explained at the Inquiry: 

I have shown that currently it takes almost 11 years for the water to reach the Cadhay spring which means that the full effect will not be felt until after the appellant has left the site.

So how much is Aggregate Industries’ U-turn worth? Not very much it would appear.

EDIT 12.7.23 

In correspondence with Devon County Council relating to post-restoration monitoring, it has now been confirmed that "the Company intends to abide by the timescales discussed at the Inquiry."

Wettest March since 1981 – and Straitgate groundwater levels not monitored

Mineral extraction at Straitgate Farm is permitted to a level down to a guesstimate of the maximum water table – the MWWT. 

It is no surprise to see that the latest version of this model is already out of date. It doesn't reflect the maximum groundwater levels recorded – as detailed in Table A.1 of Aggregate Industries’ Proof of Evidence to the Public Inquiry.

The Planning Inspectors said in their report that "the MWWT grid would be updated as necessary to reflect any higher groundwater readings."

Indeed, Condition 28 of the permission says: 

Prior to the commencement of any soil stripping on any phase of the development, a review of the Maximum Winter Water Table (MWWT) grid (being the hydrogeologically modelled surface of the maximum winter water table based on the highest recorded winter groundwater levels) shall be submitted to the Mineral Planning Authority for its approval in writing.

Have groundwater levels at Straitgate Farm exceeded the MWWT this month, given that England has had its wettest March since 1981? 

Nobody knows. 

Groundwater levels across the site are currently not being monitored – and haven't been for over a year.

Aggregate Industries provides first Straitgate update

Nearly three months have elapsed since Aggregate Industries was granted planning permission to quarry Straitgate Farm. 

As previously posted, the company must satisfy a number of pre-commencement conditions and obligations before any mineral extraction can start, which is not expected before 2025. 

Last month, we asked Aggregate Industries to provide monthly updates by email "to include what AI has done at or involving Straitgate over the previous month and what AI is planning for the following month and future dates." 

The company agreed, but warned "the next few months may be relatively quiet as we decide the way forward." 

Aggregate Industries' Planning Manager has this week provided the following update for March:

Further to my email of the 20th February I am just getting in touch with an update on where we are. 

As you are aware we met with some of the local PWS owners on the 8 March and we undertook to respond to the matters raised at that meeting. I am currently working on this response and I hope to be in a position to contact all PWS owners with our response in early April, most likely after Easter, but when I have a firm date I will let you know. 

On other matters we have also met with Devon rights of way to discuss the proposed additions to the rights of way network in the application. 

In the meantime if you have any queries by all means get in touch.

Aggregate Industries’ ‘unilateral ultimatum’

Local private water users are understandably unhappy about Aggregate Industries’ threadbare legal obligation – the company’s Section 106 Unilateral Undertaking, or, as many have called it, ultimatum. 

This legal document, approved by the Planning Inspectors following the Public Inquiry last October, details what Aggregate Industries is obligated to do in the event that any private water supply in the surrounding area is harmed as a result of the company digging into the aquifer at Straitgate Farm. 

Various concerns have been raised with Devon County Council as the Mineral Planning Authority. Many of these concerns, and other ones too, were raised by SAG at the Inquiry. Aggregate Industries' legal representatives dismissed them out of hand – as shown here (with our legal team’s annotated responses) – claiming the UU "fully addresses even the fanciful scenarios that the [SAG] Note proposes": 

the Appellant notes that no Private Water Supplies Interest has raised any concerns with the terms of the licence, including the Rule 6 Party. The terms of the Offer Letter, including the licence have also been agreed with the Council. There is therefore no evidence of any issue with the licence in any event. 

This is plainly not true. Cadhay had been raising concerns for years. These concerns were again raised at the Inquiry by SAG as the Rule 6 party. If other private water users had not raised concerns, it was because Aggregate Industries had not talked to them to find out their specific needs. 

The Planning Inspectors accepted that: 

52. The measures provided in the UU to mitigate loss of flow or water quality have been subject to criticism both by the MPA and by SAG. 

but nevertheless decided: 

55. The UU is provided as a precautionary measure in respect of water supplies and is only necessary on this basis. We find that the UU would be an effective mechanism to provide alternative water supplies. 

In response to the concerns since raised by local people, Devon County Council, who is not a signatory to the agreement, said: 

We have referred your concerns and those of others to the County Council’s legal department and it is their view that we cannot offer legal advice to third parties on this matter and that you would need to take your own legal advice to decide how to proceed. 

Clearly, local people are now on their own in the event of any dispute if their water supplies become harmed – up against the deep pockets of a global cement giant.  

The barrister representing SAG, said in his closing statement: 

The Appellant has given little attention to the practical details of the mitigation necessary to protect the 120 people, businesses, three farms and the Cadhay House Estate who rely on private water supplies. It is absolutely no excuse to say that private water supplies might be harmed in a number of different ways. The multiple types of problem which might occur underscore the need for proper solutions to be worked up. In that regard it is important to bear in mind the inequality of arms between the Appellant and the many individuals whose private water supplies the development plan requires to be protected. 

What Devon County Council does have some say over going forward is Water Protection and Monitoring, as detailed in Condition 27: 

Prior to the commencement of development, a water supply monitoring scheme shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Mineral Planning Authority. The scheme shall secure the ongoing monitoring, management and maintenance of water supplies and shall specify: 

(a) the monitoring arrangements (including monitoring of pH levels) for private water supplies;

(b) the monitoring arrangements (including monitoring of pH levels) for stream flows at private water supplies; 

(c) the frequency of monitoring at the private water supplies which for the avoidance of doubt shall be a minimum of once per month for the lifetime of the planning permission; 

(d) the continuation of the surface water and groundwater monitoring points including a requirement to maintain a piezometer at each corner of each working sub-phase of the development and to replace any piezometers that become lost through quarry working; 

(e) the maintenance arrangements for the piezometers at the private water supplies; 

(f) the form and content of the annual monitoring report which is to be provided to the Mineral Planning Authority in respect of the private water supplies. 

The development shall be implemented in accordance with the approved monitoring scheme. 

It is understandable how all this, which for many will be the first formal communication from Aggregate Industries, must all have come as a nasty shock for private water users. No friendly introductions. No apologies for its plans to dig up the neighbourhood and cause untold aggravation. Just a legal ultimatum that will leave a large number of people with 20 or more years of worry and uncertainty. 

Is it any wonder mineral planning applications attract so much opposition?