Conservative quarry policy taking hold!

“Staffordshire Conservatives pledge to limit the amount of quarrying moves a step closer”

I’ve written numerous times over the last 20 months about aggregate industry plans to massiveley increase quarrying in Staffordshire and the specific proposals for huge new quarries around Lichfield and Tamworth.

Within eight weeks of taking control of Staffordshire we’d set in stone our policy to try and put right Labour’s 28 years of disregard to protecting our county’s countryside. Not once in all that time had the Labour County Council considered capping the aggregate extraction and once again last year they failed to limit the massive industry proposals.

Those political failings mean Staffordshire provides a whopping 65% of all the sand and gravel the West Midlands Region contributes nationally.

The Regional Assembly at first resisted providing the independent figures

That’s far more than the other Strategic Sub Regions provide with Herefordshire contributing 2.8%, Shropshire 8.1%, Warwickshire 10.3%, West Midlands County (Greater Bham) 5% and Worcestershire 8.6%.

Now, whilst Staffordshire County Council carries significant clout about aggregate quotas, the final decision is a mixture of negotiation with neighbouring areas and central Government.

But it’s fair to say that the efforts of the last couple of months are paying off with an independent report commissioned for the first time to assess what quotas should be taking account of an array of factors from natural reserves to environmental impact in each sub regional area.

And the report is good news for Staffordshire. So good infact, that the Regional Assembly originally refused to provide the raw data because it was so very different to the current quota apportionment. Eventually, however, they did and the independent figures show Staffordshire is providing more than twice the amount that is fair.

The report shows that Staffordshire should provide between 23.99% and 32.41%, Herefordshire 4.69% to 9.4%, Shropshire 15.01% and 29.06%, Warwickshire between 11.1% and 15.24%, West Midlands County 8.29% to 35.32% and Worcestershire between 9.62% and 10.95%.

Sub regional government in the other areas have been tough on protecting their environment whilst Staffordshire County Council simply haven’t bothered until now.

There’s still some tough negotiations to do but the evidence firmly suports what we believed all along was right. It’s now likely that the other five Strategic Authorities will work with Staffordshire to reduce the entire West Midlands Region quota because that will then mitigate to some degree the increased proportion they are likely to take.

All in all things are moving firmly in the right direction and whilst it’s not feasible to expect the full reduction for Staffordshire in one go, because that would cause a real supply problem, it will set a long term trend. Our immediate priority, however, is to reduce Staffordshire’s contribution sufficiently to avoid the need for new quarries or extensions.

Those negotations will take place over the next 10 weeks and I’ll update as we go forward.

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