Monday, 26 October 2020

Surprise. AI needs yet another extension – ‘to compile additional information’

Aggregate Industries' planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm will enter yet another year. Last week the company agreed with Devon County Council to extend the date for determination to 31 March 2021.

It’s not the first extension. There have been others:
And so, this East Devon pantomime goes on. Will this application be extended ad infinitum, or will Devon County Council finally tell Aggregate Industries to shit or get off the pot? 

What’s Aggregate Industries' excuse this time? We haven’t done our homework, Miss. We need more time to compile additional information, Miss. 

Right. Of course. It’s what Aggregate Industries has spent the last decade doing, compiling additional information about quarrying Straitgate – much shown to be inadequate, with faults, omissions and lies. 

Aggregate Industries began compiling back in 2011. A planning application was launched in 2015. The application was withdrawn. More information was compiled. In 2017 a revised application was lodged. Questions were raised. More compiling. In 2019, questions were still being raised about fundamental issues on sustainability, on drinking water sources and the cattle crossing conundrum; information that should have been compiled with the original application, information still outstanding.

Aggregate Industries now claims a few more months will do it. But what has it been doing in 2020? No one would claim this year has been easy, but the company did find the time and wherewithal to address planning applications at Marshbroadmoor, Hillhead and in the Dorset AONB, to name but three.

But let’s not forget the fundamental issue here: There is no need for any aggregate from Straitgate Farm. Aggregate Industries has millions of tonnes right next door to its processing plant at Hillhead. And whilst the company has been sitting on its hands this year, another operator has recently announced plans to flood the Devon market with massive amounts of cheap secondary aggregates.

And yet, Aggregate Industries continues to peddle its unsustainable CO2 intensive plans for Straitgate – with its 2.5 million mile haulage scheme – despite promises from cement giant parent LafargeHolcim that it really does want to do things differently now, that new priorities have been set, that sustainability sits at the top of the agenda, that – according to the company's Chief Sustainability Officer – "it is a cool club to be part of":


Are we to believe all those claims? Or do we look at Aggregate Industries' ridiculous scheme and conclude it’s all "Bullshit"?


Meanwhile, in other news, Alarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing.

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Monday, 19 October 2020

LafargeHolcim CEO talks CO2

Aggregate Industries – UK subsidiary of cement giant LafargeHolcim – submitted its first application to quarry Straitgate Farm back in 2015. The application was subsequently pulled, and in 2017 – despite the climate crisis – Aggregate Industries re-submitted plans, which this time involved an outlandish 2.5 million mile haulage scheme.

Aggregate Industries started pushing the phrase "Sustainability is at the heart of our business" in 2016. It still claims that today. They're splendid words, but utterly meaningless if the company's idea of sustainability, the company's idea of action on climate change, is hauling as-dug sand and gravel from Straitgate 23 miles away to Uffculme for processing. No wonder Aggregate Industries' countless pledges to reduce CO2 have come to naught.

But, as we posted, major investors are now starting to demand climate action from big polluters. Here, two cement CEOs discuss CO2 reduction with a senior portfolio manager from Norges Bank:
 

According to the portfolio manager:
Investors are no longer just focussed on words but are also looking at hard numbers and climate-based metrics.
That must be alarming for companies like LafargeHolcim and Aggregate Industries; alarming for companies that have so far thought that words – not actual reductions – might be enough.

One of the cement CEOs involved in the discussion was LafargeHolcim’s Jan Jenisch. He admits that until three years ago, the company hadn’t done enough on sustainability. This was obvious even in East Devon, if Aggregate Industries’ planning application for Straitgate at the time was anything to go by.

Will anything now change? Time will tell:
Jan Jenisch admitted that it was a challenge for himself and LafargeHolcim to get the focus right initially, in terms of agreeing a new way forward on carbon reduction. He explained that, until three years ago, the company hadn’t done enough on sustainability. However the context changed due to the CO2 movement and new scientific evidence, and it became obvious that new priorities had to be set and the agenda had to be accelerated. "It was important to make things happen and I put sustainability at the top of my agenda," said Mr Jenisch.
LafargeHolcim needed to educate itself on the facts, agree a way forward and energise the company to get on board with the new targets. "Communication was missing, and acceleration, which is needed in this situation," he added.
It was important for LafargeHolcim to make people part of the programme. The group's decision to target zero emissions was not an idea generated in the CEO's office. "It was the result of many people around the globe wanting to go on this journey," said Mr Jenisch. 
And, if true, thank goodness they have pushed the CEO to take action.

But why hadn’t LafargeHolcim done enough on sustainability? Why hadn’t it taken climate change seriously enough? This serial polluter – that can trace its roots back to economic collaboration with the Nazis and beyond – will have long been been aware of the harm it was causing to society, year in, year out. Was that not enough to spur action? Did it really need to wait for the money men to raise concerns?

Jan Jenisch points to new scientific evidence, to a conversion 3 years ago, as though anthropogenic climate change is a recent discovery. It might be new to Jan Jenisch, but 1856 was when Eunice Newton Foote showed that the heating effect of sunlight was affected by CO2; 1896 was when Svante Arrhenius calculated the effect of doubling atmospheric CO2 to be an increase in surface temperatures of 5-6°C; 1958 was when measurements confirmed the steady increase of CO2 in the atmosphere; the 1980s was when global temperatures began to rise sharply; 1988 was when the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and 2006 was when even Aggregate Industries recognised that climate change "[is] happening and we have to take action now."

Since then Aggregate Industries' emissions have gone up, and in 2019 – despite new priorities, despite it apparently being "important to make things happen" – LafargeHolcim emitted 148,000,000 tonnes of CO2; more than many countries and still 2% higher than 2017.

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Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Where are we with the cattle crossing issue?

Aggregate Industries' proposal to quarry Straitgate Farm – a dairy farm – would require the introduction of a cattle crossing across the busy B3174 Exeter Road, close to the brow of a hill. This would be used up to four times a day for around 150 cows – in much the same way that cows cross roads elsewhere in Devon and beyond – so they can access pasture to replace that lost to quarrying. 

Aggregate Industries has so far failed to assess the impact of cows on queueing traffic. As traffic consultants Vectos – representing another party – wrote:
The provision of a Cattle crossing over the B3174 may have severe impact on the operation of the B3174, which in the absence of assessment is not known.
Last year, as we posted in Bovine movements revisited – more than 2 years on, Devon County Council – following advice from their Highways Management department – wrote to Aggregate Industries:
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.
At the start of this year, we made another Freedom of Information request to Devon County Council and learnt that Aggregate Industries informed the Council last October:
[AI’s traffic consultant] remains disappointed that your highways colleagues have done a U-turn from what we agreed with them at our meeting in terms of the cattle/livestock crossing. However, that said it may be in our interests to demonstrate that we have provided betterment that we secure a consent for a new perpendicular cattle crossing and we are currently preparing an application for submission to EDDC. Are you happy with this approach as this would negate altering the red line boundary?
The FOI asked for all Council correspondence relating to the application, but no reply to that communication has yet been provided. We can safely presume, however, that the answer was yes because last December, Aggregate Industries wrote to Devon County Council again:
A planning application for a new cattle crossing over the B3174 Exeter Road is also being finalised for submission to EDDC.
It's hardly a surprise that in 10 months no such application has appeared on EDDC’s planning website.

How would such an application be received? Look what happened last time such a plan was aired: 
Cattle crossing plan labelled ‘outrageous’
Traffic light 'cattle crossing' called 'downright dangerous'
'Outrageous' plans to proposed cattle crossing at Staitgate Farm, Ottery.
Since then, no assessment has been produced to show the impact a cattle crossing would have on the functioning or safety of this main road into and out of Ottery – a fast and busy road linking the town with the Daisymount A30 junction. Aggregate Industries – the company that conveniently forgot to mention the thorny issue of cows in the first place – would obviously rather not assess the dangers, despite claiming – perhaps in jest? – that only they can be trusted to provide data on the movements of cows.

But many will find it surprising that this has not been addressed – given the issue directly results from the proposal, given the issue was flagged to the Council more than three years ago, and given the impact that cow movements – planned and unplanned – seem to have on the roads elsewhere in Devon. As DevonLive recently reported:
It's a proper Devon morning on the roads with warnings to motorists to watch out for sheep, tyres and a whole herd of cows on the roads.
This wasn't an isolated incident. Twitter points us to more:







This Twitter search points us to a multitude of others:

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LafargeHolcim features in new documentary

In Nigeria, LafargeHolcim operates a large cement plant. As we posted in ‘LafargeHolcim pollutes with impunity’, this plant has smothered the local community with dust. The local people have started a class action to compensate for the alleged "pollution and destruction of the plaintiffs’ town, farmlands, rivers, air and general environment, arising from limestone mining and cement manufacture for a continuous period of 60 years." LafargeHolcim's response to the allegations can be found here. 

A new documentary explores how multinationals violate the fundamental rights of local populations and create environmental disasters; two companies are featured, one of which is LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries:

...when multinationals like @Glencore or @LafargeHolcim pollute rivers or suffocate villages with fine particles, they must be held responsible!
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Monday, 12 October 2020

Dormice

Dormice numbers in the UK have declined by over 70% in two decades.

Dormice have been found at Straitgate, but Aggregate Industries wants to grub up their habitat – ancient hedgerow up to 4m wide. Little suitable replacement habitat is yet in place. Any that has been planted will take decades to yield anything worthwhile. The PTES "strongly objects":
An extensive amount of important hedgerow will be destroyed. This is completely irreversible. The hedgerows are present on maps dating from the turn of the 20th century and are likely to have existed for centuries before this. Compensation planting (for that is what replanting is – not mitigation as suggested) for losses of irreplaceable habitat should be at a ratio in the region of 30 – 1. Proposed replanting and that already done falls far short of this.
Plainly, Aggregate Industries couldn't care less. It's not bothered about this species. Its business model relies upon trashing nature: digging up the ground, removing everything in its path.

Close by, however, others are bothered, doing their bit to stop this much-loved species from extinction.
 
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Monday, 5 October 2020

‘Ask Exeter University to help with your CO2 problem’ – suggested DCC to AI

We all know by now that rather than letting Aggregate Industries – subsidiary of cement giant LafargeHolcim – stand on its own two feet, ‘Devon County Council’s job is to deliver Straitgate’, providing any assistance it can.

But did the Council really suggest – in a time of climate crisis – that Aggregate Industries should greenwash away the carbon emissions connected with its application to quarry Straitgate Farm?

Surely not. But in October last year, in an email about the outstanding matter of "the Sustainability appraisal" uncovered by a FOI request, Devon County Council sent this message of help and advice to its friends at Aggregate Industries:
As I previously mentioned on a number of occasions, I can’t stress enough how important that will be and you might want to consider using a known expert in the field such as Exeter University to check it over, if not to produce it.
I can foresee that the road mileage (amongst other issues) will be a main point of debate so the report should also consider more up to date solutions such as an electric fleet before I am asked to go back to you to assess it?
This is only an observation, but is given in the spirit of helping to address issues that I am almost certain will be raised in the consideration of this proposal by the County Council’s development Management Committee. Any report to them currently needs be extremely clear on the carbon/sustainability issue following the declaration of a Climate Emergency.
In December, in a later email, Aggregate Industries confirmed:
I am in the process of arranging a meeting [with a] Senior Research Fellow from Exeter University to address climate change and sustainability issues.
Perhaps Devon County Council thought Aggregate Industries hadn't quite grasped the severity of our climate emergency – the record temperatures, the wildfires, the melting ice caps. Perhaps they hadn't – if Aggregate Industries’ track record on CO2 emissions is anything to go by.

But people might wonder why, if Devon County Council has declared a climate emergency, its planners – "in the spirit of helping to address issues" – are still suggesting ways to ease the passage for Aggregate Industries’ nonsensical plan. People will rightly wonder how hauling as-dug aggregate 2.5 million miles – to a processing site that already has more than 10 millions tonnes of the same material – contributes to Devon’s net-zero ambitions.

And Devon is not alone with net-zero ambitions. Even cement giants are now jumping on the bandwagon, pushing out press releases, proclaiming they've changed:


So, if LafargeHolcim really has changed its spots, how does the carbon-intensive plan for Straitgate – the one that would be operative until the mid 2030s – sit in a #netzero world?

How does it square with what Guy Edwards, CEO at Aggregate Industries, claimed only last month?
We’re proud to be part of the LafargeHolcim Group as it makes the bold and ambitious pledge to go Net Zero by 2050. By being the first building materials supplier in the world to sign up to the SBTi’s ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°C’ demonstrates our genuine desire to achieve real and lasting change in protecting the environment.
In our capacity as one of the UK’s leading construction materials suppliers, we fully support LafargeHolcim’s pledge and accelerating the use of low-carbon and carbon-neutral products is just one of the initiatives we’re currently working on to help create a greener construction industry.’
Or this statement, from Guy Edwards talking about lowering CO2:
Sustainability remains at the heart of what we do, and our aim is to make a positive contribution to the built environment now and for future generations.
You see, words are easy. Words are cheap. The question is, will any of those words herald anything new? Or is it more greenwash? Will carbon-intensive plans be junked in favour of more sustainable ones? Or will it be more of the same-as-usual?

Because as things stand, such grandes déclarations ring hollow – when Aggregate Industries is prepared to put a ridiculous 23 miles between quarry face and processing plant for bog-standard sand and gravel.

In fact, you wonder if this company has any idea what sustainability looks like. If the company really wanted to "address climate change and sustainability issues", if "sustainability remains at the heart of what we do", if there were any genuine desire, Aggregate Industries would have scrapped its plans for Straitgate years ago.

But as extreme weather grips our planet, Aggregate Industries clearly has no qualms about calling upon Exeter University to "address" the CO2 emissions connected with the Straitgate project, no doubt putting it through some greenwashing cycle to help councillors look more favourably upon its gas-guzzling scheme.

We don’t know what came of any meeting at Exeter University. The Senior Research Fellow in question, with "a background in architecture and building physics", is often called upon by local authorities. In fact, somewhat ironically, he has been called upon to help move Devon to net-zero carbon emissions.

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Thursday, 24 September 2020

AI’s quarry plan for Straitgate likely to be UNDER WATER AGAIN

Many years ago, in a spirit of glasnost, Aggregate Industries decided to share the groundwater data it recorded in and around Straitgate Farm. With so many private water supplies at risk, it did so to show it had nothing to hide.

Not any more. In 2018, Aggregate Industries put a stop to public scrutiny of groundwater data for the Straitgate site – after groundwater levels embarrassingly exceeded the company’s guesstimate of the maximum winter water table, the MWWT, in four locations by up to 1.6m. The MWWT is intended to be the base of any quarry. It’s important to get it right, if no buffer or margin of error is to be left to protect surrounding water supplies. It had apparently been "defined with confidence", but the company still won’t come clean on its accuracy. It was shown to be wrong by a staggering 2.8m in one location.

Aggregate Industries stopped public scrutiny of groundwater levels despite the risk that mineral working poses to surrounding drinking water supplies – as so starkly outlined by Professor Brassington, who also warned:
The MWWT grid will therefore be modelled from levels lower than reality, which will enable AI to excavate below the maximum water table.
Fortunately, however, we still have access to the data from one borehole, PZ10, adjacent to Straitgate Farm. Water levels in this borehole closely trend with those recorded at Straitgate.

For example, in Winter 2013/2014, when PZ10 recorded groundwater at a high level of 103.0 mAOD, high groundwater levels were also recorded across the then 6 piezometers across Straitgate Farm. These levels were then used by Aggregate Industries’ consultants to predict the MWWT across the proposed excavation site.

Following that, the Environment Agency requested further boreholes be drilled and groundwater monitoring piezometers installed to provide a fuller picture of what was going on across the site. There are now 18 piezometers monitoring groundwater levels. A fuller picture was indeed provided.

In Spring 2018, when PZ10 reached 101.7 mAOD, groundwater levels in a number of these new boreholes exceeded the MWWT guesstimate by as much as 1.6m. We posted about it. We alerted Devon County Council and the Environment Agency – who had no access to this data.

What then happened? Aggregate Industries’ consultants, instead of remodelling the entire MWWT, made a trivial finger-in-the-air localised fudge to the modelled surface, which in their so-often-shown-to-be-mistaken view, represented:
a realistic assessment of the change in MWWT arising from the readings in April 2018

But Aggregate Industries' realistic assessment will no doubt have been breached YET AGAIN. Earlier this year, PZ10 reached 102.4 mAOD – 70cm higher than in 2018. It’s virtually certain that a number of the newer piezometers – PZ2017/02 and PZ2017/03 in particular – will have recorded new maximums.

Someone needs to get-a-grip of this nonsense. There needs to be public scrutiny of the groundwater data for Straitgate. The MWWT is never going to be an accurate prediction of the maximum water table. There needs to be a margin of safety, a freeboard, an unquarried buffer retained above the MWWT – like EVERY OTHER QUARRY where drinking water supplies are at risk.


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Delayed again

Aggregate Industries has again failed to meet an agreed extension for determination of its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm – the company's 10th such extension.

In March, Aggregate Industries and Devon County Council agreed to extend the determination date of the company's planning application to 31 October. This extension has now been missed, given that submission of further information would require at least 30 days of public consultation before the DMC meeting of 21 October.

When we posted in April we asked:
What will be achieved in these months – in the face of a global pandemic and the economic depression that will inevitably follow – that wasn’t achieved during the other months since the application first went live in June 2015? No one would be surprised if the answer were somewhere between zero and nothing.
And indeed no one will be surprised. Aggregate Industries has made no attempt to progress its application for Straitgate during the last 6 months, even if it did find the time and inclination to submit planning applications for nearby Marshbroadmoor and Hillhead.

Some planning applications are no doubt easier than others.

What might Aggregate Industries do now, with the construction industry in dire straits due to the worsening Covid-19 situation, and with aggressive plans by the Drakelands’ operator to flood the South West for evermore with a cheap source of secondary aggregate?

Whatever Aggregate Industries does, we can be sure that our council will continue to entertain the company’s moribund scheme for Straitgate Farm – as it has done pliantly for the last 5 years.
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Dalai Lama: Carbon “must become the most important currency of our time”

Over the past year, millions of young brothers and sisters have been protesting, calling on political leaders to take action to combat climate change. They are helping to educate the public even as we all witness the destruction of ecosystems and the dramatic decrease in biodiversity.
I really appreciate Greta Thunberg’s efforts to raise awareness of the need to take direct action. Her effort to elevate the issue of global warming among schoolchildren is a remarkable achievement. Despite being very young, her sense of universal responsibility is wonderful. I support her “Fridays for Future” movement.
I believe that every individual has a duty to help guide our global family in the right direction. Prayers and good wishes alone are not enough. We have to assume responsibility. Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives.

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LafargeHolcim pledges 20% cut in CO2 emissions by 2030



Lo and behold, one major polluter – the world’s biggest cement maker, with emissions higher than many countries – has responded; 20% is the number picked. LafargeHolcim's chief sustainability officer claims:
It’s the most ambitious target ever produced in the cement sector
That’s quite a claim. Here’s another – from the CEO of competitor CEMEX:


In what might be likened to a Damascene conversion, Jan Jenisch, LafargeHolcim's CEO, claims:
I believe in building a world that works for people and the planet. That’s why we are reinventing how the world builds today to make it greener with low-carbon and circular solutions.
Bravo. Are we to believe the 20% target is achievable?


Or is this 20% another moonshot? More bullshit? More greenwash?

You see, we’ve heard all about 20% targets before – from LafargeHolcim’s very own UK subsidiary, Aggregate Industries:
In 2006: In a watershed year which saw the publication of two significant reports on climate change and its effects on the economy and the environment, we have a clear message: it’s happening and we have to take action now.
In 2008: We continue to work towards our 2012 target of 20% reduction per tonne of production from the 2008 verified baseline as detailed in this report.
In 2011: carbon emissions [have] steadily increased to 11.04 Kg CO2 per tonne in 2011.
In 2012: By 2016 we will reduce process carbon emissions by 20% on 2012 levels in absolute terms.
In 2015: Absolute process carbon emissions continue to rise and are 20% above the 2012 baseline.
It’s easy to pick a number out of the air. Will this one be any different?
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Thursday, 17 September 2020

Drakelands operator to begin selling 700,000 tonnes of stockpiled aggregates – with aim to “saturate” local market

Earlier this week, we posted how an aggregates discovery at the Drakelands tungsten mine at Hemerdon near Plymouth will – claims operator Tungsten West – have "a huge advantage over local competitors".

Clearly plans are moving apace – particularly with regard to the company's plans for aggregates.


Tungsten West hopes to start drilling at its tin-tungsten mine in Devon next week as it looks to raise £5 million with a private placement.
The mining company will also begin selling the 700,000 tonnes of aggregates already stockpiled on the surface within the next few weeks.
In the future, aggregates could be a key product in the whole project.
Chief executive Max Denning said that Tungsten West could produce 3.5 million tonnes of aggregates per annum depending on the quantity exported.
Mr Denning added that the company’s short-term strategy is to “saturate the entirety of the road capacity in and around Hemerdon and attack the local market which equates to half a million to 750,000 tonnes per annum.”

EDIT 29.9.20 Devon County Council has published a site monitoring report for Drakelands. 

On the issue of previous noise complaints:
The operator is also considering a number of changes to the process plant which are intended to deal with the previously unresolved issue of Low Frequency noise (LFN) this is an issue about which the regulators and the local community are expecting the new plant to provide a resolution. 15.0
On the issue of secondary aggregates:
The Operators have an approach to the MPA for consent to remove secondary aggregate from the mine in order to provide additional start up finance and to provide suitable material for the development of the Sherford new settlement to the east of Plymouth. This was possible by written agreement under the provisions of Condition 19 which restricts aggregate exports (which would normally be permitted development) to 50 in any one day and the total tonnage of secondary aggregate transported shall not exceed 4,000 tonnes in any week or 150,000 tonnes in any calendar year with the condition “tail” that numbers are so restricted unless the prior consent of the Mineral Planning Authority has been secured. Following discussions with the Highway Authorities, a temporary uplift of aggregate export movements has been agreed for a 6 month period while the operators put together a formal planning application. 22.0
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‘Humanity at a crossroads’

The Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, published before a key UN summit on the issue later this month, found that despite progress in some areas, natural habitats have continued to disappear, vast numbers of species remain threatened by extinction from human activities, and $500bn (£388bn) of environmentally damaging government subsidies have not been eliminated.
The UN’s biodiversity head, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, said humanity was at a crossroads that would decide how future generations experience the natural world.
“Earth’s living systems as a whole are being compromised. And the more humanity exploits nature in unsustainable ways and undermines its contributions to people, the more we undermine our own wellbeing, security and prosperity,” she said.
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Major investors demand climate action from big polluters

As ice shelves shatter and millions of acres burn, investors collectively controlling assets worth $47 trillion are demanding environmental action from the world’s biggest corporate polluters, of which cement giant LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – is one.



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AI pushes same old arguments for plan to continue to despoil Dorset AONB

In July, we posted AI's plan to extend Chard quarry would have ‘significant adverse impact on AONB’, how Aggregate Industries' planning application WD/D/19/000451 submitted to Dorset Council to extend Chard Junction Quarry at Westford Park Farm had attracted objections from Dorset AONB Partnership, and also from Dorset Council Landscape Officer who wrote:
I have a concern that a detrimental effect on this part of the AONB is unavoidable with assessment C not being met of the National Planning Policy Framework 2019. The proposed quarry extension with its associated haul road is considered to have the potential for a significant adverse landscape impact on the character of the designated Area of Outstanding Natural beauty.
The NPPF is of course very clear about AONBs:
Planning permission should be refused for major development other than in exceptional circumstances…
Aggregate Industries is plainly getting rattled by the responses to this application, and the company’s consultants have now fired off another letter to Dorset Council to re-address the AONB issue – claiming that the Council and the Dorset AONB team have got it all wrong:
...we consider that the Landscape officers’ and AONB Team’s consultation responses do not reflect a balanced assessment of the development.
Well, Aggregate Industries' consultants would say that, wouldn't they?

These consultants – being completely impartial, of course – think they are the ones who can provide a balanced view. As if. Last month – representing the company that couldn't care less about carbon and climate change, if its multi-million mile haulage scheme for Straitgate Farm is anything to go by – they wrote:
Taking a balanced view, it is considered that given the clear and substantive benefits that this scheme can bring to this part of the AONB, the carbon and climate change benefits of retaining a sand and gravel quarry within this location, the associated benefits to the local economy and the acceptable environmental and technical assessments, the proposed extension at Westford Park Farm is in the public interest and the proposal meets the exceptional circumstances as set out in paragraph 172.
However balanced Aggregate Industries' consultants' view might be, they did nothing more than rehash the same tired old arguments, adding nothing new or exceptional to justify why the company's sand and gravel quarry at Chard Junction should continue to blight the Dorset AONB.

In fact, the above paragraph has been wheeled out before, lazily lifted virtually word for word from a previous document in April:
4.1.20 Therefore, it is considered that given the clear and substantive benefits that this scheme can bring to this part of the AONB, the carbon and climate change benefits of retaining a sand and gravel quarry within this location, the associated benefits to the local economy and the acceptable environmental and technical assessments, the proposed extension at Westford Park Farm is in the public interest and the proposal meets the exceptional circumstances tests set out in the NPPF.
We already know that Dorset AONB Partnership has found Aggregate Industries' arguments for exceptional circumstances "uncompelling":
I note that the applicant has submitted information in support of their view that the proposal is able to meet the requirements of an exceptional circumstances test. In my opinion, there are aspects of the arguments presented that are uncompelling.
Furthermore:
The major adverse effect of the operation of the proposed extension on the undeveloped, tranquil and remote character of the site and its context clearly compromise the special qualities of the AONB, placing the application in conflict with a wide range of Management Plan policies, as listed earlier.
These views should hardly come as a surprise to Aggregate Industries. As far back as 2018, a scoping opinion from Dorset Council stated:
The Dorset AONB Team have also provided the following comments “At this early stage I would like to express my strong concern regarding the foreseeable landscape and visual effects of the proposal. The site area possesses a strong and attractive rural character, with an undulating pastoral appearance and mature hedgerows and trees bounding the fields. There are close views into the site area from publicly accessible locations and the area is an integral part of the hillside in views into the AONB from the opposite side of the Axe Valley. Consequently, it is my opinion that the site is highly sensitive to the proposed development and it is difficult to see how foreseeable significant effects could be satisfactorily addressed.”
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Marshbroadmoor: Covid-19 means AI needs more time to import restoration material

Whilst the company’s planning application for Straitgate Farm sits in perpetual limbo, Aggregate Industries is finding time for other planning matters.

We’ve already posted how the company found time to submit plans for a new asphalt plant at Hillhead – with its 27m high hilltop smokestack.

Now, Aggregate Industries has found time to make another planning application, this time in relation to Marshbroadmoor near Rockbeare. DCC/4197/2020 seeks "Variation of Condition 3 of planning permission DCC/4132/2019 to allow the importation of material until 31 March 2021."

Permission was granted to work Marshbroadmoor back in 1995. Twenty five years on, this small parcel of land – that has yielded no more than a few hundred thousand tonnes of sand and gravel – has still not been restored.

Devon County Council approved planning application DCC/4132/2019 in December last year, with Condition 3 stipulating that "restoration shall be phased in strict accordance with the letter dated 20 November 2019" and that:
The importation of material at the area known as Marshbroadmoor outlined on drawing no. 2647-4-1-DR-0005 S5-P9 (dated December 2019) must cease by 30 September 2020.
Aggregate Industries is claiming exceptional circumstances again. Not this time as an argument to despoil an AONB – currently the Dorset AONB – but because of Covid-19:
Due to the exceptional circumstances of the Covid 19 pandemic inputs at Marshbroadmoor have not been as expected and we are therefore seeking a short time extension of 6 months to the 31 March 2021 to continue importing material to complete the approved restoration works.
We hope the Council will recognise that these are events wholly outside the control of the company and will support this short time extension as it will assist in supporting the local businesses as the local economy continues to recover.
Aggregate Industries claims the requested extension will not delay overall restoration of the site, due by 30 December 2021. Time will tell.
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Sunday, 13 September 2020

‘Enormous supply of cheap aggregates discovered in Devon’, claims Tungsten West

A surprise and "lucky" aggregates discovery at the Drakelands tungsten and tin mine at Hemerdon near Plymouth will have "a huge advantage over local competitors", claims operator Tungsten West.

We’ve posted about Drakelands before. Since the discovery of a tungsten-tin deposit in 1867, the site has had a chequered history. Wolf Minerals was the latest company to attempt to profit from the deposit, pouring £200 million into the site before calling in the administrators in 2018.

Last year, Drakelands was purchased by Tungsten West Ltd. Operations are due to restart in 2021.

Of course, it’s easy to stand next to a hole in the ground and make grandiose predictions of untold mineral wealth; mining companies do it all the time – particularly when looking to raise funds from hopeful investors. Once upon a time, it was claimed there were 20 million tonnes of sand and gravel at Straitgate; now Aggregate Industries is struggling to make the case for less than 5% of that.

Grand claims are now being made about Drakelands, particularly about the huge supply of aggregates discovered. If those claims prove true, Aggregate Industries, and its business across the South West, will suffer.


Tungsten West has reassessed the Hemerdon site, and claims to have discovered hundreds of millions of tonnes of aggregates. The granite mined for the tungsten and tin "makes exceptionally high value aggregates." Classed as secondary aggregate – a by-product of working the metal deposits – this material would have "a huge advantage over local competitors" by avoiding the aggregates levy of £2 per tonne. Tungsten West’s executive chairman talks of a "fantastic opportunity" and claims:
The mine sits in an area of the UK which is desperately short of aggregates with very good prices.
We have the full suite, from 40 ml clean gravels all the way down to fine sands, which are produced naturally as part of the processing route.
Last month, according to Tungsten West, Devon County Council agreed to application PRE/4195/2020 to temporarily increase the amount of aggregates permitted to leave the site, from 150,000 tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes a year. Tungsten West hopes to make this permanent, and thereafter increase it further to 2 to 2.5 million tonnes a year, "once we’ve demonstrated we can sell that much aggregate into the local and wider markets."

Tungsten West hopes local markets could take "in the order of 0.5 million tonnes a year", and has apparently "signed letters of intent and are in the process of formalising full sales contracts for a number of large local housing projects where we would be the exclusive supplier of aggregates." The company claims the already-mined tailings from the Wolf Minerals operation contain 3 million tonnes of finely crushed granite which can be readily used for concrete and mortar.

In the longer term, Tungsten West is looking to sell 3.5 to 4 million tonnes of aggregates per year, which – with "at the gate prices of £12-14/tonne" – could produce "$50million of revenues." Drakelands is "less than a mile from rail", and, using Plymouth docks, aggregates could be shipped to London and Continental Europe. Tungsten West now expects 50% of revenue to come from tungsten, 5% to 10% from tin, and 40 to 50% from aggregates.

A new supply of levy-free aggregates of the magnitude described is bound to have an impact on the South West market, undoubtedly forcing current players to reassess the scale of their operations.
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Saturday, 12 September 2020

Rockbeare site up for sale

It wasn’t many years ago that Aggregate Industries was saying the derelict concrete products plant at Rockbeare was being set aside as an alternative location to process any material from nearby Straitgate. In fact, Straitgate was included in the Devon Minerals Plan on the basis that processing could be carried out at Rockbeare.

It is this Company’s view that there is an inextricable link between Straitgate Farm and the Rockbeare Minerals Working Area...
And that furthermore:
Working the reserve at Straitgate Farm initially and possibly wholly through our existing mineral site at Rockbeare we believe is both efficient and has environmental benefits.
That’s all in the past now. In 2016, Waycon Precast Ltd took over the site, having secured a bridging loan. One director remarked:
The company now has a really bright future and, importantly, jobs have been secured.
Last year, Waycon Precast Ltd went into administration, with a long list of creditors, including Aggregate Industries owed £75k. The business was subsequently acquired on a pre-pack basis by Waycon CP Ltd.

The site is now up for rent and sale:
Offers sought in excess of £2,750,000 for the long leasehold interest in the property subject to contract and exclusive of VAT.
Currently, the site is:
Let to an established tenant until 31st December 2020 at £240,000 pa.

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Thursday, 10 September 2020

‘More contractors are requesting recycled sand’


Sheehan Group – an Oxfordshire-based company recycling construction and demolition waste – claims "more and more contractors are embracing high-grade recycled sand, which has a lower carbon footprint and protects a scarce natural resource". Sheehan's finance director commented in AggNet:
It largely goes unreported that sand is on the endangered natural resource list. Globally, around 13 billion tonnes of sand are mined for construction and the impact on the environment is vast and unsustainable.
Natural resources will not be able to cope with ongoing demand, but there are alternative solutions that are sustainable. Our circular driven economy approach to recycling C&D waste not only reduces the amount of waste going to landfill, but it also creates high-quality recycled products that can be used in local projects.
In eight years, we have produced 333,000 tonnes of recycled sand, which competes with mined products on the market. We are finding more contractors are requesting recycled sand for use in construction projects and, by doing so, are helping make a positive difference to the climate emergency.
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