Contents:
Abstract
Introduction
The Environment and Sustainable
Development
Quarrying as a Campaign Issue for
Environmentalists
Case Study: Ashton Court Quarry
The Aggregates Policy and System in England
A Critique of the Aggregates Planning
System
How achievable is the Sustainable use of
Aggregates?
Conclusion
Bibliography
This report was written against the background of the increasing environmental controversy surrounding proposals for the quarrying of construction aggregates in the UK. It addresses the planning system for aggregates and asks whether it is possible for their use to be sustainable.
In the first place the meaning of 'sustainable' is examined by analysing the different paradigms of environmentalism and the way in which the term 'sustainable development' has been interpreted. A basis for sustainability is then proposed.
Following an introduction to the emergence of quarrying as an issue for environmental campaigners the case study is then introduced and the planning system for aggregates in England is explained.
An examination of the aggregates planning system against the criteria of sustainability then follows. The demand led approach is analysed and, on the basis that it conflicts with the objectives of sustainability, methods for reducing demand are proposed. This then enables the forecasting approach to be addressed followed by alternative ways of meeting the need for aggregates. The problems associated with the top-down approach of the planning system are also examined.
The report ends with a discussion about the obstacles to implementing a sustainable aggregates policy.
The research combined interviews (not included) and a case study. The interviews targeted key informers involved in the planning and use of aggregates and sought to expose different approaches to the issue of sustainability. This contributed to understanding the different approaches to the planning of construction aggregates.
The interviews were supported by the published opinions of aggregates industry professionals on the issue of sustainability. Again the paradigm from which the writers came could be identified and the implications for their approach to the environmental debate drawn out.
The case study took the local proposal for the extension of Ashton Court Quarry. This has exposed many of the conflicts in the aggregates planning system and its failure to address the issue of sustainability.
The research reveals the broad range of opinions regarding the nature of the environmental crisis and how it should be addressed. Putting those opinions into a broader context reveals the underlying objectives and values of the various informants and enables their response to proposals for alternative approaches to be anticipated.
On the basis that a sustainable aggregates policy must address the need for aggregates as distinguished from the demand, the research finds that a system for the sustainable use of aggregates is possible. Such a system, however, challenges many of the assumptions underpinning the dominant approach to sustainable development namely the adherence to policies of economic growth. It also challenges the priority of economic issues over and above the interests of the environment. For these reasons any review of the aggregates planning system will encounter fierce opposition and take considerable time to implement.
Length: 16,000 words
Few people would disagree that the environment today enjoys a higher political and policy profile than ever before. More people in the UK belong to environmental organisations then to political parties, every corporate body wants to display its environmental credentials, Swampy and Muppet Dave grab the imagination of youth culture and consumers seek out products that are free of additives.
This rise in awareness and concern has been triggered by many events, some of them catastrophic and international in scale, others entirely localised and of little consequence to all but a few. Awareness though has brought with it widespread demands that policy makers address what many see as an impending environmental crisis and thereby cast the mould for a more stable and predictable future.
Governments have sought to respond by producing national environmental strategies and negotiating international agreements to respond to the most pressing global problems. And out of these has emerged the concept of sustainable development, the subject of much debate and derision. Many see it as the basis upon which new policies and programmes can be based but to others it is a distraction from more fundamental issues relating to the priorities to which society subscribes and the equity between nations and generations.
The debate is held in many arenas: global warming, global population, the rainforests, world trade, the roads programme, endangered species, biodiversity. All have and still do dominate the headlines and in the process the arguments applied by the respective sides in the debate have been developed and refined. Some argue that economic growth is an essential prerequisite of action to protect the environment while others argue that environmental capacities are finite and must be respected irrespective of economic growth.
Only recently however has the mineral industry, and specifically the aggregates industry, been the subject of the wider public debate. Traditionally people living close to quarries and other workings have demanded provisions to deal with the dust, noise and inconvenience caused by the industry. But there has been little attempt to question the fundamental need for the aggregates emerging from the quarries. Instead the prescribed needs of the economy and therefore the construction industry have been indulged and accepted.
Quarrying inevitably leads to the loss of an existing environment. The removal of the top soil followed by years of blasting and quarrying can not avoid a massive impact upon the local environment. The transportation of the aggregates then causes added environmental impacts whether it be by road or rail. The industry, however, argues that aggregates can only be extracted where they occur. If they are to win them, all they can do is to attempt to mitigate the impact. Translocation of the top soil and any valued habitats, strict working conditions to limit the noise and dust generated, maximising the use of rail transport and restoration of the site all serve to protect the environment.
The 1990s however have seen a succession of high profile applications for quarrying in increasingly valued environments. Lingerbay on the Isle of Harris, Whatley Quarry in the Mendips and Ashton Court Quarry outside Bristol have all attracted the attention of the industry, the public and environmentalists. And in so doing the environmental debate has been extended and attention has turned to the policies for minerals and aggregates.
This dissertation examines the extent to which existing policies and practices have responded to the environmental agenda and asks the question whether the sustainable use of aggregates is possible; whether it is a myth or an opportunity.
It takes as its starting point the debate surrounding sustainable development and the implications of the various environmental paradigms for policy making. It then explores the nature of existing policies for aggregates before examining the ways in which the policies succeed and fail to address environmental concerns. The potential to improve the effectiveness of policy is then investigated before overall conclusions are drawn on whether the sustainable use of aggregates is a myth or whether it is possible.
In examining the issues the dissertation takes, as a case study, the proposals to extend Ashton Court Quarry. The planning application, which was recently considered by the local Council, draws out some of the frictions otherwise hidden in the policy debate. The research also calls upon interviews with three key informants representing different perspectives and stages in the production and use of aggregates and the opinions expressed by industry professionals in the journal 'Mineral Planning'.
The Environment and Sustainable Development
The plight of humankind is intrinsically linked with the environment within which it exists. People can not survive without the materials, the energy and the absorbing capacity which the environment offers. Take away one of these features and we rapidly lose our equilibrium.
It would therefore seem logical for people to respect the interests of the environment as much as they do their own for to fail to do so ultimately threatens their own wellbeing. In reality, however, this has not been the case.
The Earth, and thus the environment, is a massive place when compared to the scale of the individual human. It is only in recent years that people have gained the ability to circumnavigate the planet in a matter of hours and to observe its finite limits from the infinity of outer-space. To our forefathers however, whose levels of consumption were relatively low by today's standards, it promised unlimited supplies of the resources and materials they needed and if they exhausted one supply, a replacement was invariably found elsewhere.
At this time, economic activity was, on the whole, carried out by many small producers. The western economies therefore operated in self regulated free markets in which a large number of self-interested producers were linked to a large number of consumers by the 'invisible hand' of the price mechanism (Rydin 1993 p.259). But because the impact of any single producer or consumer was extremely limited, they never had to take account of the external costs of their activities, and especially their effect on the environment.
Collectively however, the impact of all these producers and consumers can be enormous but with no ability to take an overview and plan strategically, the market continues upon its course. Combine this with the pressure that competition brings for constant growth and thus increased production, and the result is the depletion of resources and the exceeding of the environment's absorption capacities.
Eventually the market will of course react; when resources have fallen to a certain level price rises are unavoidable, when clean air and water become valuable commodities in themselves, when the capacity of the environment to absorb waste products declines to the point where waste disposal attracts premium values. But by then the damage is done; landscapes will have been lost, ecosystems destroyed, species made extinct and resources contaminated. While the market may ultimately be able to recover some of the situation, the cost is extremely high.
Over recent years there has been a growing realisation that this process of environmental destruction is already well advanced. A string of events have raised local, national and international awareness of the crisis: radiation leaks at Windscale, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl; alarm about the use of pesticides; opposition to the use of DDT as an insecticide; major pollution incidents such as the Amoco Cadiz; the release of methyl isocyanate at Bhopal; the destruction of the rainforests; the hole in the ozone layer; global warming; declining air quality. The list is goes on.
In response to this crisis individuals, organisations and governments have started to explore the strategies that they need to develop in order to avert disaster. Evolution of the debate however has also witnessed increasing diversity in the range of opinions and beliefs that are held. To this end, environmentalsim can be divided into two paradigms: ecocentrism and technocentrism (O'Riordan 1981).
Ecocentrism
Ecocentrists believe that humankind is just one part of the greater global ecosystem and as such is subject to the same natural laws and forces. As life cannot be separated from its physical surroundings, the two combine to make a single system (Lovelock 1979). This system, in which life influences its surroundings and vice versa, works through processes of mutation, chance, chaos, symbiosis and natural selection to maintain a balance which allows life to flourish. Any disruption to that balance will obviously jeopardise life. The lesson for humankind is that if we exceed the capacity of the environment and disrupt the balance that currently supports us on the Earth, our very survival will be threatened.
Many fundamental ecocentrics, such as Deep Ecologists, promote the idea of small scale communities in which people can establish an identification with nature. They also maintain that the transition to a more locally based culture would be easier if there were fewer people in the world although they reject the view that they are neo-Malthusian. (Porritt and Winner 1988, Harding 1995).
Other ecocentrics, described by O'Riordan (1989) as communalists, hold a more moderate position but nevertheless maintain the challenge to many of the values of modern western society. Their emphasis is upon decentralised, democratic and small scale communities which use appropriate technology and renewable energy. They believe that economic relationships are intimately connected with social relationships and feelings of belonging, sharing, caring and surviving (O'Riordan 1981). They hold a lack of faith in large scale technology, expertise, the centralised state and anti-democratic institutions. They also believe that materialism for its own sake is wrong and that economic growth should be geared towards providing for the needs of those currently living below subsistence levels.
Technocentrism
Technocentrism, on the other hand, subscribes to a belief in the ability of humankind to control and guide the environment. To this end there is a belief in a technical solution to every problem and consequently an emphasis upon the power of technology and economic reasoning. There is little emphasis upon public participation in decision making and little desire to engage in debates about relative values. They do not advocate any radical change to the existing social, economic or political structures (Pepper 1993 p.34).
Fundamental technocentrics, or interventionists, subscribe to the belief previously mentioned that the market is able to resolve problems arising from resource depletion so that just as one source of material is depleted, the price mechanism intervenes not only to reduce demand but ultimately to make the exploitation of alternative resources a viable proposition. When the problem is one of environmental damage as opposed to depletion, there is a belief that a technological solution will always be found. Electric cars, pollution clean-up operations, tidal barrages and some of the more radical ideas such as patching up the ozone hole, all fall into this category.
Economic growth is a mainstay of the interventionist's approach providing the surpluses which allow for technological research and development. Increasing and competing demands for existing resources means that the growth of individual companies or economies is essential if they are to survive.
The natural world is attributed no more than an instrumental value, the roots of this being embedded in the relationship between modern science and Christian theology (White 1967). As such, the environment exists for the use and benefit of humankind and cannot have any values or rights which in some way equate with those that we attribute to ourselves.
A more moderate line is adopted by those that O'Riordan (ibid) describes as the accommodators. They do not believe that the technical solution is necessarily the best solution to every problem and instead advocate avoiding the problem in the first place. To this end, there is a strong dependence upon the management of the environment and humankind's interaction. Regulatory laws, fiscal measures such as subsidy and taxation, education and promotion all feature in the accommodator's strategy.
At the same time however there is no desire to radically change or intervene in the status quo. Existing concepts of free trade, democracy, the welfare state and others all have to remain unchallenged. The process is therefore one of assessing the balance between competing demands although given the interest in maintaining the status quo, the economy usually dominates over the environment (Owens 1997b). It is the accommodators who represent the dominant paradigm in much of the western world today.
Sustainable Development
Against the background of this increasingly diverse response to the environmental crisis, the 1980s and 1990s have witnessed ongoing attempts by international bodies to address the situation and propose strategies which will resolve the problems. The nature of the organisations and their inter-governmental empowerment means that they will, on the whole, be representative of the accommodators. While they are charged with finding solutions to environmental problems, they are not expected to promote solutions that undermine the authority and power of the state, its institutions and commercial interests.
The term 'sustainable development' has emerged as a phrase which captures the response of the accommodators to the environmental crisis and was brought to the forefront of the debate by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987). The Commission's report (the Bruntland Report) gave the term its most often used definition:
In developing this definition, the Commission was attempting to address both the environmental crisis and the inequity of the under-development of the South compared to the rapid development of the North.
The report draws special attention to the number of hungry people in the world, the levels of illiteracy, fuel shortages, poverty; essentially the gap between rich and poor. It states: "There has been a growing realisation in national governments and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environment issues...... It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality" (ibid p3).
In many of the applications of the concept of sustainable development however, this important perspective has been overlooked and instead attention has focussed upon alternative interpretations of 'development', especially those where economic development is equated with economic growth. The British Government's official response to Brundtland argued that British economic policy already conformed to the principles of sustainable development (DoE 1988), while the CBI holds that economic development itself is the prime source of environmental improvement (Maybe 1996).
In the place of an application of the Brundtland definition which focuses upon international equity, therefore, an interventionist model has developed in which ecology and the economics of growth are deemed to be compatible. Indeed, development and growth become part of the sustainable solution (Sachs 1997). The term 'sustainable development' is therefore vulnerable. "We can have our cake and eat it, it seems to say: no longer need industrial advance cause environmental degradation. We can have sustainable development instead; everyone can be both rich and green" (Jacobs 1991 p59). Pepper (1993) further contributed to this analysis:
There are other weaknesses with the concept of sustainable development, especially when it is seen to emerge from the paradigm of the technocentrism. One is the basis of valuation. In conventional practice, future value is discounted on the basis that it is better to have something today than in a number of years time. While that argument may be valid for the individual, it is highly questionable if it is applied to future generations (Jacobs 1991 p.69). Attempts to establish policies for the protection of the environment therefore need to be underpinned by a reassessment of the value of the future, especially when it belongs to future generations.
Brundtland's definition of sustainable development also takes a distinctly anthropocentric approach. The emphasis is upon the needs of present and future generations while the environment is valued in terms of its importance to those generations. But there is little consideration of the needs of non-human species. A considerable part of the modern environmental debate is therefore overlooked and thereby puts the concept of sustainable development in conflict with the ecocentrics.
Although there are arguments against attributing intrinsic value to the natural world, (for example: should a hierarchy of interest and value be established; or if the integrity of ecosystems is valued what is the penalty against the perpetrator of damage to that ecosystem?) there are clear arguments to be made that other species have rights. If those rights are ignored in favour of our own, then our relationship with the natural world will continue in its detached state and our capacity to ruin the environment will continue.
Brundtland rightly makes the connections between poverty and the environment and advocates economic development as the solution. If this is taken to mean economic growth, however, then development can be achieved without addressing the needs of the poor, especially if growth is measured with conventional tools such as GDP. A more robust approach to development therefore needs to embody greater wealth for the poor fuelled by more sustainable lifestyles for the rich. The question 'how much is enough?' is therefore a central theme in the debate. This essentially means that the rich have to reduce the size of their ecological footprint and implement substantial cutbacks. Sachs (ibid) estimates that the consumption of energy and materials by the rich would have to be reduced by 70-90% over the next 40 to 50 years. As greater efficiency is unable to achieve this goal alone, the central emphasis has to be upon greater sufficiency.
In view of these criticisms and with a view to establishing a basis upon which the sustainable use of aggregates can be based, we need to try to establish an alternative approach which could address the threat posed by the environmental crisis. The issues that need to be addressed are:
These principles reflect the concerns of the ecocentrics but seek far reaching review of the existing social and economic system as opposed to a radically different model for society altogether. As such they represent a position between the communalist and the accommodator.
Having established these core issues it is possible to consider the framework for the use of aggregates in England prior to applying the principles of sustainability to the policies and practices.
Quarrying as a Campaign Issue for
Environmentalists
Throughout the UK there is a growing level of opposition to
quarrying. While concern and even hostility has always been high in
areas immediately adjoining quarry workings, these have frequently
reflected 'NIMBY' concerns and have generally been addressed with
mitigation measures such as restrictions on hours of working, dust
and noise control and landscaping.
In recent years however environmental campaign groups have started to take a more strategic overview of quarrying and its implications. Increasingly policy and proposals have moved towards the notion of super-quarries which either merge neighbouring quarries together or increasingly extend existing workings. This is facilitated by technological advances which facilitate increasingly rapid extraction and processing. The demand for land for development also mean that relatively remote rural areas have a rising conservation value which brings environmentalists into conflict with the industry which is increasingly constrained as to where it can physically quarry.
Whatley Quarry is one such example. Located in the Mendips, it is one of the largest crushed rock quarries in Europe and covers 150 ha. Permission for the quarry was first granted in 1948 but in 1995 the operators, ARC Southern Ltd were granted permission to extend it by 32 ha. The political campaign against the quarry has been led by local parish councillor and Friends of the Earth activist Richard Dixon who challenged the Council's / Secretary of State's decision in the High Court. Opposition to the quarry extension also led to a mass trespass of the site by 250 people in December 1995 during which the railway line servicing the site was cut. Although the High Court challenge failed, the campaign against the quarry extension continues to attract support and media attention.
Another proposal which attracted substantial opposition was the Lingerbay coastal superquarry on the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles. Responding to Government guidance (DoE 1976) supporting the principle of coastal quarries, Redland Aggregates submitted an application in 1991 to quarry 550 m tonnes of anorthosite over a 60 year period. Following mass public opposition to the Council's announcement that it was minded to grant permission, the application was called in by the Secretary of State in 1994 and the public inquiry opened in October. When it closed the following June it had established a new record as the longest public inquiry in Scotland. On the last day of the inquiry, following a local referendum when local people voted two to one against the quarry, the Council reversed its previously held position of support.
At the inquiry, Friends of the Earth led a consortium of 20 environmental NGOs opposing the application on grounds of a lack of demand and need, the failure to provide increased employment for island people and a lack of proper marine infrastructure for bulk shipping. The decision of the Inspector is still awaited.
These and many other campaigns are supported by the emerging literature focusing upon aggregates quarrying. In May 1996, the Council for the Protection of Rural England published Rocks and Hard Places (Owens 1996) which examines the provision of aggregates and the conflict between mineral working and policy commitments to sustainable development. The response from the industry has been swift and damming with one writer describing it as "scare mongering" and "ignorant" (Kempley 1997).
Friends of the Earth have also started to turn their attention to the issue (Elkin 1994) with proposals emerging for a regional quarry campaigner in the South West (Birkin 1997) and increasingly sophisticated opposition to open-cast mining in Derbyshire and South Wales (Maynard 1997).
Locally, however, it is the proposals for an extension to the quarry at Ashton Court which has attracted the attention of environmental campaigners.
Case Study: Ashton Court Quarry
Background to the application
Ashton Court is a historic estate lying in the green belt to the west of Bristol. Both the mansion (listed Grade I) and the park and gardens (listed Grade II*) are owned by Bristol City Council who acquired them, for the public benefit, from the estate of Lady Smythe in 1957. The park is included in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
The park and mansion are now established as a major amenity for the people of Bristol and the surrounding area. The park hosts notable national and regional events such as the International Balloon Fiesta, the Bristol Community Festival and the North Somerset Show while the mansion provides a venue for receptions and conferences. The acres of grounds and woodland also provide many opportunities for informal recreation. An estimated 750,000 people visit Ashton Court Estate every year.
On the western edge of the Estate lies Top Park Field. This is a gently sloping meadow which is surrounded on two sides by woodland. It is described by the Environmental Statement Technical Report of 1995 as "species rich MG5 neutral grassland" (N.Somerset Council 1996) and as one of the best examples of dry neutral grassland in Avon (ibid). Special interest in the site lies in the diversity of the species and their rarity; rare green winged and pyramid orchids can be found there as well as the bee orchid. The slopes also support a range of other grassland plants including broomrape, toadflax and greenwinged orchids.
Ashton Court Estate and Top Park Field enjoy the protection of a range of Structure Plan and Local Plan policies including those seeking to protect the character and historic features of Priority Landscapes (Avon County Council 1994, Policies C5 & C10), those protecting Sites of Nature Conservation Interest (ibid Policy C4) and those protecting Priority Wildlife Conservation Areas (Woodspring District Council).
To the west of the Estate and beyond Top Park Field adjoining Longwood Lane is Durnford Quarry, sometimes referred to as Longwood or Ashton Court Quarry. The quarry has been used since the C19 and is located in the Failand Ridge, the Structure Plan's preferred area for the extraction of Carboniferous Limestone (Avon County Council 1994, Policy M2). The quarry supplies crushed rock, coated roadstone and ready-mix concrete to the construction industry. Because it has to rely upon road transport, 90% of the quarry's production is sold within a 10 mile radius of the site.
In 1962, permission was granted for quarrying to take place on each side of Longwood Lane. The area to the west of the lane is now worked out and is used only for the main screening and storage operations. It is linked to the primary crushing and extraction area on the east side of the lane by a conveyor that passes through a tunnel under the road. The total area of the quarry is currently 40 ha.
In 1984/85 the quarry operators were granted a lease by Bristol City Council which would allow them to extend the quarry into Ashton Court estate. At the same time they obtained a new planning permission which would allow them a production rate of 1 million tonnes per annum. At the time the agreement attracted little attention and the quarry now generates a rent of £40-50,000 per annum for the City Council, all of which is ringfenced for the benefit of the Estate.
The planning permission expires in 1999 but the lease from the City Council includes an option for the operators to extend the quarry further to the east into the area known as Top Park Field. This extension formed the basis of a further planning application first submitted in 1994. It was at this stage that opposition to the quarry first emerged.
The application
Top Park Field is identified for an extension of Durnford Quarry in the Minerals Local Plan, published by Avon County Council in 1993. The Plan proposes a phased eastward extension of the quarry with complimentary landscaping, early reclamation of all or part of the existing plant complex and phased reclamation of the main excavation with possible after uses to take into account nature conservation interests, agriculture, forestry and public open space.
Pioneer Aggregates (UK) Ltd, the operator of the quarry, submitted their planning application to Avon County Council in November 1995. With local government reorganisation in April 1996, the responsibility for decision making passed to North Somerset Council.
The application was for continuation and extension of the existing quarry, the continued use of the existing plant and buildings, the translocation of grassland turves and soils within the application site and restoration of land.
The application proposes that existing works will continue at the rate of 1 million tonnes per annum but the extension of the quarry into Top Park Field, which will cover 8 ha. with a depth of 44m, will release 9.56 m tonnes of rock over an extended life of 10 years. Stone will be quarried using drilling and blasting after which it will be taken to the primary crusher by truck. Clean stone will then be transferred by conveyor to the main plant on the other side of Longwood Lane for further processing and despatch. Transportation from the site will continue to be by lorry at the existing rate of 320 trips per day in loads of 17-25 tonnes.
Prior to commencement of extraction, the application proposes to translocate the species rich turf in Top Park Field to Ashton Hill Field to the north of the main plant site on the other side of Longwood Lane.
From the third year of extraction of the extension site, restoration of the quarry will begin. Initially conservation grassland will be established on the worked out benches but ultimately the area of quarry within Ashton Court will be available for conservation, amenity, recreation and/or woodland use. A balancing pond on the floor of the quarry will compensate for loss of water storage capacity arising from removal of the rock.
The supporting statement which accompanied the application was described by the planning authority (N.Somerset Council 1996) as analysing "the environmental policies relevant to the site and concludes that the application proposals would accord with national and local policy guidance, would have a minimal adverse effect on the environment and would comply with the principles of sustainable development" (my emphasis). The report does not, however, explain what this means.
The application was supported by an Environmental Statement (as required by the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988) comprising a series of technical reports. The result was described as "a comprehensive scheme mitigating against significant environmental impact upon the local environment and local residents/users of the area and (protecting) the character of the local environment" (non-technical summary cited in committee report).
The supporting statement prepared by Pioneer justified the proposal on the basis of maintaining continuity of production and service, providing an opportunity for the comprehensive restoration of the site and providing continued employment to c.50 local people and 47 owner drivers.
The application was also supported by Bristol City Council and 46 letters of support which cited, amongst other things, the need to retain the local supply of aggregates, local employment benefits and the limited operational impact upon local people. No objections were raised to the application by the local parish council, the National Rivers Authority, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or English Nature.
Opposition to the application
Opposition to the application came from a number of sources. Statutory objectors included English Heritage, the Countryside Commission, the Garden History Society and the Avon Gardens Trust all of whom objected on the grounds of the detrimental effect upon the historic park.
The Wildlife Trust for Bristol, Bath and Avon objected to the application on ecological grounds, citing the loss of herb-rich hay meadows and chalk and limestone grassland in the UK together with the very low incidence of unimproved neutral grassland and calcerous grassland in the North Somerset area. They also raised doubts about the viability of the translocation of the wildflower meadow.
Bristol Friends of the Earth presented a petition of 16,000 names against the application while another petition of 6,000 names objected because of: the loss of land acquired by Bristol City Council for the benefit of the people of Bristol; the wildlife value of the site; the noise and dust nuisance; the loss of temporary car parking during festivals; and the impact upon the community forest.
70 letters of objection were also received citing opposition to the loss of ecology and open space, reducing need for aggregates, the impact of increased traffic, potential blight and safety concerns.
The basis of the decision
On 31 July 1996, North Somerset Council resolved to grant planning permission. The officer's report considered that the key planning issues were: conformity with the development plan; need; environmental and amenity considerations; effect on the local landscape; effect on the SNCI; and highway implications.
The report concluded that the environmental impacts "are ones which in the absence of any other material considerations, would justify a recommendation of refusal". The report went on however to explain that other factors of material importance, especially when considered together, could outweigh the nature conservation and other interests. To this end the report referred to the assumption in favour of development in accordance with the Development Plan as embodied in S.54a of the Town and Country Planning Act, the short term need for local stone, the economic and employment need, the financial support the quarry gives to Ashton Court estate and the eventual restoration of the whole quarry. As a result, the officers considered that the potential benefits outweighed the disbenefits and therefore recommended that permission be granted.
How the situation has been resolved (to date)
In October 1996 solicitors instructed by two members of the Ashton Court Quarry Campaign notified North Somerset Council that they would be pursuing judicial review of the decision to grant planning permission.
The grounds for the review were that officers misdirected members as to the effect of the Environment Act 1995 regarding site restoration, that the officer's references to S.54a were misleading in so far as they referred to presumptions and that the officers had not properly assessed the implications of the translocation. To this end, the officers had not considered material considerations, or had considered immaterial considerations.
At a hearing of the application for leave to challenge North Somerset's decision in March 1997 (R. v North Somerset Council and Pioneer Aggregates (UK) Ltd ex parte Garnett and Pierssene), Lord Justice Popplewell found that the applicants did not have locus standi to bring the case and that they had failed to act promptly in bringing the action. The actual grounds for bringing the action were never considered although Popplewell commented that he thought that the prospects of success were "fairly slim".
This decision opened the way for North Somerset to conclude the S.106 agreement with Pioneer. However, a week after the court hearing, local people set up a new campaign group named 'The Friends of Ashton Court' to continue the fight against the quarry. Shortly afterwards, English Nature served notice on North Somerset that they were considering declaring Top Park Field a Site of Special Scientific Interest and that work on the planning agreement should be suspended. This notice was subsequently withdrawn in May but the basis of English Nature's decision to withdraw was being examined by campaigners.
At the time of writing hostility to the proposals remains high and the prospect of campaigners resorting to non-violent direct action can not be ignored.
Aggregates policy and system in England
What are aggregates?
Aggregates are an essential ingredient for the construction industry. Crushed rock, sand and gravel are all needed for the concrete, mortar, hardcore and infill that feature in building and maintenance projects for housing, offices, shops, factories, schools, roads, bridges, churches and so on.
In 1994 there were 2100 sites in England producing 216 Mt of construction aggregates. This represents 5-6 tonnes per person as compared to 1/16 of a tonne at the turn of the century (DoE 1996 and Simpson 1997).
The sites covered a total of 29,000 ha (or 111 sq miles) with a further 17,000 ha classified as permitted (ibid). The demand for aggregates from road construction and maintenance totals 32% of production; one kilometre of motorway requires 100,000 tonnes of aggregates. Meanwhile housing consumes 28% of all aggregates; an average house requires 50-60 tonnes of aggregates during construction. Private commercial development consumes a further 23% and most of the remainder is accounted for by other public works projects.
In 1996, aggregates sales fell by 11%. This has been explained by the cuts to the road building programme and the lack of growth in the construction industry. (Mineral Planning 1997). Government forecasts, however, show that the demand for aggregates is set to rise substantially over the 15 years to 2006 to approximately 300 Mt (DoE 1994 Fig 5).
The two main sources of construction aggregates are crushed rock and sand and gravel. The distribution of resources across England, however, is not consistent. For example, crushed rock is found mainly in the South West and the East Midlands while demand is concentrated in the South East where 27% of all aggregate production is used (ibid). Furthermore, focuses of demand are in the cities while production is in rural areas.
Due to their heavy bulk characteristics, but the relatively low cost of extraction, the single greatest cost element for aggregates is transportation. Frequently this is by rail but in some areas, such as North Somerset, no rail facilities exist and so quarries rely upon road transport. Smaller quarries in particular are unable to develop the economies of scale necessary to pay for rail connections.
In 1993 the UK aggregates industry employed about 25,000 people and had a production value of about £1.3b (Novotny 1997).
The Essence of Aggregates Policy
Since 1946 the planning of aggregates (which falls within the wider mineral planning system) has come within the overall town and country planning system. Consequently the twin elements of guidance through development plans and the control of development proposals on a case-by-case basis apply equally to proposals for the working of aggregates as they do for all other forms of development.
Section 54(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires that, where the development plan contains relevant policies, applications for development which are in accordance with the plan shall be allowed unless material considerations indicate otherwise (DoE 1997 para.1). PPG12 therefore requires Mineral Planning Authorities (MPAs) to draw up a Minerals Local Plan (MLP) covering the whole of their area (DoE 1992 para 3.11). Outside the metropolitan areas and London, the MPA in England is the County Council but if the area has been the subject of local government reorganisation the Unitary Authority becomes the MPA. This is the case in the former country of Avon.
The role of the MLP is to carry forward policies which provide for the supply of minerals whilst also ensuring "the required degree of environmental protection associated with the development" (ibid. para.3.11). The MLP is required to be in conformity with the Structure Plan but should indicate in more detail the areas where provision is made for mineral working. The MLP, which should cover a minimum period of 10 years, can set out the development control criteria that will be applied in considering applications together with requirements for the restoration and aftercare of workings.
MLP policies are guided by Planning Policy Guidance notes (PPGs) and more specifically by Mineral Policy Guidance notes (MPGs).
MPG6 (DoE 1994) provides advise to MPAs and the minerals industry on how to ensure that the construction industry receives an adequate and steady supply of materials at the best balance of social, environmental and economic cost. In order to attain adequate supply, MPG6 endeavours to forecast the future demand for aggregates. Cambridge Econometrics were appointed to undertake forecasts for the economy as a whole over a 20 year period after which ECOTEC extrapolated the likely impact on the construction industry and the consequential demand for aggregates. The level of consented reserves was then subtracted from the total forecast demand to produce the additional amount which would have to be provided. MPG6 identifies the way in which this provision should be met and apportions it to the regions stating the amounts that will come from primary, secondary, marine dredged and recycled sources.
Regional Area Working Parties (RAWPs) are responsible for allocating the regional apportionment to individual MPAs and are made up of representatives from the DoE, the MPAs and the industry.
The provision agreed for each MPA should ideally be met by identifying specific sites and preferred areas. Specific sites are those where there are known reserves, that development will be acceptable in planning terms and the landowners are willing to allow development. Preferred areas are those where there are known to be reserves and where planning permission can reasonably be expected to be forthcoming.
MPG1 (DoE 1996) acknowledges however that it may not be possible to identify sufficient sites or preferred areas for the entire period of the Plan. Consequently, areas of search can be identified. Although not all proposals in such an area will be appropriate for development, it is likely that the area will contain some sites which are viable.
Because of the amount of time it takes to bring aggregates workings on line, MPG1 and MPG6 encourage the use of landbanks by MPAs. These will be sites with planning permission but not yet developed. In the event of an increase in demand, the site can then quickly be brought into production. In the case of sand and gravel, the recommended landbank is seven years worth of the MLP's provision, a reduction from the 10 years supported by the previous version of MPG6 (DoE 1989). There is no recommended period for crushed rock but MPG6 indicates that a longer period may be appropriate. In Avon permitted reserves should last for more than 20 years (Avon County Council 1993). Landbanks can not include contributions from recycled, secondary or marine dredged materials. Instead they are concerned solely with land won primary aggregates.
The Need Imperative
The most significant feature of the aggregate planning system is its emphasis upon supplying need. To quote MPG6:
This approach to aggregates planning has its origins in the post war period. There was at that time a massive demand for building materials to replace the building stock lost through enemy action and to modernise the infrastructure of the country. Rock, sand and gravel for use in concrete, mortar, hardcore and cladding all had to be supplied to the areas in which demand existed, primarily the large cities in the south east, the Midlands and the north of the country.
In 1946 the government established a committee chaired by Sir Arnold Waters to make recommendations for the future control of the extraction of sand and gravel within the Town and Country Planning Act. The first report of the Waters Committee was convinced that the aggregates industry was essential for the economic recovery of the country and therefore needed to be properly planned.
In order to address industry desires to maintain secure supplies and local authority concerns that every authority should take a share of the burden, the Waters Committee initiated a programme of national supply guidance. The forecasts though proved to consistently underestimate the actual levels of demand thereby demanding frequent revisions. When these started to predict a doubling of national production of sand and gravel over the 10-15 year period from 1965, alarm was raised about the impact upon agriculture, amenity and development in the South East.
As a result the process of planning was revised in 1971. The planning system was extended to: include crushed rock; provide analysis on sectoral demand from within the construction industry; give guidance on regional and local levels of demand; and provide information on the movement of aggregates between the regions. Forecasts would then be made for a period of up of 25 years.
At the same time the Verney Committee was appointed to advise upon the supply of aggregates to the construction industry. Verney's report, which still has considerable influence upon the planning system, concluded: "The object of a policy for aggregates must be to achieve an adequate and steady supply of materials to meet the needs of the construction industry at minimum money and social costs" (DoE 1976).
This emphasis upon fulfilling the need can be followed through the mineral planning system. MPG1 states: "Mineral Planning Authorities should not include development control policies in their plans which require developers to provide evidence on the need for the mineral in support of their planning applications" (DoE 1996 para. 40) and the Mineral Local Plan for Avon states: "The release of land for mineral extraction will....be influenced by considerations of the need for minerals" (Avon County Council 1993 para 3.13), namely Government guidance.
The report on the extension of Ashton Court quarry (N.Somerset Council 1997) included an extensive discussion on the need for the quarry, but this was all in the context of the need to meet the supply objectives of MPG6 as opposed to the need for the aggregates themselves.
Dealing with applications
Planning applications, which cannot be made in outline, are dealt with in the same way as the rest of the development control system. Applications are made to the local planning authority which then refers them to the Mineral Planning Authority. The specialist nature of the subject means that the MPA will usually have specialist officers to deal with applications. The same people will usually be responsible for the preparation of the MLP.
Over the years an increasing number of conditions have been applied to permissions for aggregates working. The application process is frequently therefore a long one and as a result pre-application discussions are strongly encouraged by Government guidance (DoE 1988a).
How aggregates planning has responded to environmental concerns
As far back as the time of the Waters Committee, the impact of aggregates workings on the local environment was acknowledged; noise, dust and impact on local amenity were all issues that had to be addressed. This has resulted in the extensive control of aggregates operations to mitigate the local impact. For example, the S.106 heads of agreement for the Ashton Court quarry lists requirements and / or restrictions on landscaping, stabilising quarry faces, hours of working, storage of mobile plant, vibrations arising from blasting, noise and dust control, production limits and lighting to name but a few. Various measures over the years have also allowed MPAs to revoke historic consents in an attempt to bring all aggregates workings under closer control.
These measures have, on the whole, proven to be successful. However, they are essentially concerned with the short term and have only addressed local environmental concerns so in recent years the mineral planning system has had to look again at its operations and develop a response to the emerging and larger sustainability agendas (Kellett 1995 p575).
The Government's first substantive statement on the environmental agenda was in the White Paper 'This Common Inheritance' in 1990 (HMG 1990). The paper considered all levels of environmental concern and described government proposals for action. It stated that:
To this end the Paper adopted the concept of stewardship as the foundation of its policies.
The planning system is widely held to be central to the implementation of sustainable development policies in the UK (DoE 1997 para.5) and so the government's planning policies are of great importance.
PPG12 (DoE 1992) states that environmental considerations must be fully integrated into the plan making process and into policies.
Referring specifically to minerals, the Government's strategy for sustainable development (HMG 1994) identifies a range of actions which can be taken by the key players. The industry should develop sustainable approaches with regard to site management, restoration and future site identification while users should increase efficiency and reduce wastage. MPAs should integrate sustainable approaches into the MLP, development control and purchasing while central government should examine its role as specifier and regulator. (para 18.26).
MPG1 (DoE 1996 para.5) highlights the importance of environmental matters but drops the reference to environmental capacity which was contained in the draft document (Mineral Planning 1996). The MPG instead notes that the objective of achieving economic growth (which it states is essential for attaining sustainable development) will carry with it adverse environmental effects. It is therefore necessary to consider all the costs and benefits and mitigate or control the process of extraction.
The guidance then proceeds to establish the objectives for sustainable development for minerals planning.
These themes are developed in MPG6 which seeks to ensure "that extraction and development are consistent with the principles of sustainable development" (DoE 1994 preamble). The acknowledged fact that future sources of aggregates are likely to become increasingly constrained in terms of where working is acceptable leads the MPG to consider alternative sources of supply for the national and regional demand forecasts. The potential of secondary and recycled materials are considered together with the opportunities for increased marine dredging and coastal superquarries. By making increased use of these sources, the Government aims to reduce the reliance on traditional land won primary aggregates.
So is the Government on track for achieving the sustainable use of aggregates?
A Critique of the Aggregates Planning System
At the heart of the aggregates planning system lies the assertion that the needs of the construction industry must be met. As the one time head of the DoE Minerals and Waste Division stated:
This statement calls into question the concepts of 'need' and 'demand'. Meeting demand implies that if people ask for something they should be given it. Need, on the other hand, implies that a requirement has to be proven before the demand can be fulfilled. In practice, however, this rather simplistic distinction becomes distinctly blurred.
The Brundtland definition of sustainable development clearly refers to the needs of today and tomorrow as does much of the current planning guidance. At the same time, the Government stresses "the importance of combining economic growth with care for the environment in order to attain sustainable development" (DoE 1994 para.10).
Economic growth is generally defined in terms of GDP. This will increase when there is an increase in demand for a product or alternatively it will fall if demand for the product declines. An increase in GDP will contribute to the political objective of economic growth and, in the Government's terms at least, contribute towards the goal of sustainable development.
The Government's obligation to satisfy consumer demands as opposed to needs is also embedded in democracy. Demands express what people want and so it would be undemocratic, even politically suicidal, to deny them their aspirations (Owens 1997a). Consequently, provision has to be made to supply the demand.
If, however, sustainable development is not synonymous with economic growth, one needs to enquire of the implications for a demand led system.
In recent years, the demand led system has been increasingly challenged by campaigners and academics stressing the distinction between demand and need (McLaren 1994, Owens 1996, 1997b). A distinction is drawn between soft demand management, where demand is met but by less damaging means, and hard demand management where the only the real need is supplied. Using the concept of need enables the underlying objective of the demand to be considered. The least environmentally damaging means of fulfilling the need can then be identified. As such, policy promotes a process of demand management and this in turn contributes to increased sufficiency and a reduction in the ecological footprint.
Initially challenges to policy emerged in the area of energy. At the public inquiry into Hinkley C, the CEGB argued that demand for electricity was forecast to rise and that the power station was essential to meet the demand. Campaigners opposing the station however argued that the cost of the station would be better spent investing in energy efficiency thus reducing existing demand. The end objective of powering electrical appliances could thereby be satisfied within existing generating capacity and without the need for the new power station.
More recently, the road programme has been the subject of the demand management debate. The car had long held a position of privilege; "The road and the car together have an enormous capacity for promoting economic growth, raising standards of living and creating a good society" (Rae 1971 cited in Owens 1997a) and through to the 1980s was positively encouraged in what was described as 'the great car owning democracy'.
By the mid 1990s however the negative impact of increasing car ownership and use in terms of pollution, congestion and the destruction caused by building new roads had become widely acknowledged. Building more roads induces more traffic which in turn demands more roads. Taken to an extreme conclusion, the country would ultimately be covered in tarmac.
The alternative to building more and more roads to accommodate the extra cars, is to adopt policies and strategies directed towards reducing the need to travel and providing alternative modes when travel is essential. The demand for cars is therefore being managed in an attempt to reduce the problems which they create.
Similar debates are taking place regarding the demand for water and for new housing. To date however there has been little attempt to apply concepts of need and demand management to aggregates. "The Government believes that for the economic well being of the country it is essential that the construction industry continues to receive an adequate and steady supply of aggregates so that it can meet the needs of the community and foster economic growth" (DoE 1994 para 9).
In the context of aggregates policy, Government guidance frequently refers to the need to balance competing demands but references to environmental protection are always qualified, for example; "to conserve minerals as far as possible" and "to protect areas of designated landscape or nature conservation from development, other than in exceptional circumstances where it has been demonstrated that development is in the public interest" (DoE 1994 para 11). At the same time, economic need is frequently absolute (ibid. para 9). The effect of this bias is illustrated in the justification used in the Ashton Court Quarry application when N.Somerset Council acknowledged the environmental arguments against development but overrode them by using economic arguments. This reflects the dominance of the anthropocentric paradigm in which the environment is down-valued thus making it easier to give priority to economic considerations. An eco systems approach however would give equal weight to the environment and quite possibly different outcomes.
Reducing Demand
If the need for quarries is to be challenged then the place to start must be the construction industry. Government forecasts suggest that the demand for aggregates could increase considerably but this refers not so much to the forecasts in MPG6 as the forecasts for the users of aggregates. Household projections estimate a need for an additional 4.4m houses by 2016 in England and Wales while National Road Traffic Forecasts project a growth rate in traffic of 58-92% from 1994-2025 (Owens 1997a). This will have a considerable impact on the need for aggregates as will any increase in other forms of development such as offices, shops, schools and hospitals.
If aggregate demand is to be controlled, then it is the demand for new roads, buildings and structures which has to be addressed, an issue acknowledged in the draft of MPG6 but not in the final version (Kellett 1995 p.574). Addressing the demand for aggregates in turn calls into question the need for roads and market attitudes towards new and old buildings, investment criteria and the transfer of externalised costs to the consumer.
Roads are the single greatest source of demand for aggregates. Government programmes for road construction in the early 1990s would have seen massive investment in new trunk roads, by-passes and relief roads with consequential increases in the demand for aggregates. However, the combined impact of Treasury budget cuts and increasing opposition to road construction meant that in successive years the programme was cut back. Proposed schemes such as the final stage of the Avon Ring Road, the Salisbury bypass and the Hereford bypass do still persist while the A30 Honiton link road and Newbury bypass are now under construction but financial constraints combined with new strategies for spatial planning as embodied by PPG13 together with the 5% per annum road fuel duty escalator and local traffic control measures are likely to mean that the level of construction envisaged by 'Roads to Prosperity' (DoT 1993) is unlikely to be realised. The savings in aggregate demand will be considerable.
The second greatest user of aggregates is housing and once again considerable increases in demand can be anticipated given Government forecasts of demand for new housing, most of which will be in the form of new build. Once again however, the forecasts are being challenged although for reasons other than the implications for aggregates. Local authorities and campaigners are concerned about the amount of development which will take place on green field sites and the lack of environmental capacity to absorb the new development. Although the pressure is to develop brown field sites in preference to greenfield, this will not resolve the demand for aggregates. The nature of the demand for new housing therefore needs to be challenged and strategies for its management developed. Alternative ways of supplying the remaining need for aggregates then need to be identified. The conversion of existing buildings offers one opportunity for tackling aggregate demand.
In Bristol there is currently 200,000 sq m of empty office space (Bristol City Council 1997). At the same time demand is described as outstripping supply. The casual observer would suggest that those wanting to occupy offices should take the buildings that are currently vacant. The empty offices however are predominantly 1950s and 60s buildings which were designed to a low specification for the requirements of the day and are unable to meet the needs of modern day office users. Poor location can also be a factor in dissuading potential occupiers.
For the modern office occupier, underfloor ducting, low energy costs and high quality working environments are on the shopping lists. These specifications can only be guaranteed in through new developments. As a result, the old offices either remain empty or are demolished while new offices are built. That, in turn, generates a massive demand for aggregates.
Some conversion and upgrading of existing buildings is possible especially if existing floorslab to ceiling heights are sufficient to allow raised floors and false ceilings to be installed. Double glazed solar glass, new entrances, upgraded lifts and energy efficient heating systems can then be fitted to allow the building to compete in the modern office market. Frequently however the physical constraints of the building make this impossible and even at rents which are 10% of those for prime office space, the total costs of occupation can push an obsolete building above the budget end of the market.
In some circumstances, conversion to another use is a viable option. In line with City Council policy, UWE is already working with local developers to convert redundant office blocks in the centre of Bristol into student accommodation; Culver House and Queen Charlotte St being examples. This is being replicated across the country with 50s and 60s office blocks being converted into private flats and hotels (Coupland CSM June 1997).
Refurbishment and conversion can therefore contribute towards a reduction in aggregate demand although in the short term at least, demand for new offices is likely to continue. The question which must then be asked, is what is being done to ensure that the obsolescence found in 50s and 60s office blocks will not be found in 20-30 years time in offices being built today.
Speculative commercial buildings are frequently designed on the basis that occupier demands will change so rapidly that the building will unavoidably be obsolete in a short period of time. In the case of industrial and warehouse buildings especially, there is little point in designing for a 100 year lifespan when the requirements of production and transport technology are likely to change to the extent that they are incompatible with the building. For evidence, one needs to look no further than the warehouses built in the early part of the century by Bristol's floating harbour.
Consequently, warehouses are built for an anticipated lifespan of 20-30 years. At the end of this period, or before, the expectation is that the building will be demolished and the site redeveloped either for a modern warehouse or some other use.
This situation is reinforced by the investment market which looks to recover its capital outlay in a relatively short period of time. The research revealed that Kraft Foods commissioned a warehouse which was to have a pay-back period of only 5 years. Offices, in the meantime, are built with an expected lifespan of 50-60 years but an expected pay-back period of 12 years.
While the investors will expect the rental income to continue well after the end of the pay back period, there is nevertheless enormous pressure to keep building costs down and this in turn has an impact upon specifications and the likelihood that the building will be obsolete in the near future.
To allow for renewal of the investment, the investor will build into the valuation of the property a contingency to allow for redevelopment. This will take a view on the likely cost of the replacement building at today's costs and will then discount it from the time in the future to the present day. Funds are then put aside to allow them to accumulate, with interest, to the required amount at the future date. This process of discounting the future, however, is at odds with the principle of valuing the future as the present is valued. Reducing its value reduces the regard had for it and that in turn makes it easier to make decisions which could have a detrimental effect. Such a course of action contradicts the ethos of Brundtland's definition of sustainable development.
The environmental cost of designing, building and investing in buildings which are known to have a limited lifespan is very high. Every generation, the building will have to be demolished and transported away for disposal. New materials will then have to be brought in to allow for the replacement building to be erected. Energy costs and pollution should also be taken into account.
The management of the demand for aggregates therefore requires a challenge to the culture of obsolescence and the discounting of the future.
In terms of occupier requirements, the changing technology which so often precipitates a need to move to modern premises could take account of the constraints of buildings. By way of example, workplace technology can currently evolve independently of the constraints of buildings for the very reason that buildings are known to be replaceable. Consequently, office computer technology has been able to evolve with a need for extensive cabling and the consequential requirement for underfloor and ceiling ducting. If, however, offices were known to be irreplaceable, would the technology not have been invented to allow for the use of computers without the need for cabling? Infrared or microwave communication links, batteries or efficient solar cells could have offered solutions.
The situation in which buildings are considered replaceable arises, in part, from the externalisation of many of the costs of demolition and construction. In demolishing a building, the developer has to consider only the costs of the demolition contractor and the charges made by the waste disposal company. The costs which are externalised include the noise, dust and other local impacts from demolition, the pollution caused by lorries transferring the waste and the environmental impact of tipping the waste material. Equally, construction of the building will be costed in terms of materials, labour costs and professional fees. Costs which are externalised include, once again, noise and pollution and also the environmental impact of the quarry: the loss of habitats; the effect on the water table; and the loss of amenity value.
A change in the balance can be implemented through the price mechanism. A new one bedroom flat in Bristol will cost, in generalised terms, £20-32,000 to build. A one bed flat in a converted building, on the other hand, will cost £29-36,000. The reasons for this difference are many, not least the fact that VAT is payable on works to an existing building but not for new build. More importantly however are the additional works required and the time needed to undertake them. Stripping building elements back, fitting components into existing spaces and ensuring that materials match all takes time and money. By comparison, new build is simpler and quicker. The environmental cost of new build is almost certainly higher but mainly because the full environmental cost does not have to be accounted for. This would suggest that intervention in the market to adjust relative prices of new build and refurbishment could be an effective means of reducing the demand for aggregates.
Increasing the cost of new build will encourage users and investors to consider buildings not as a disposable asset but as a long term commitment which can be adjusted and adapted to the needs of the day rather than demolished and replaced. A continued demand for aggregates is inevitable, but not to the levels currently forecast.
The construction industry could also explore the use of alternative materials. Just as the energy market is being diversified to increase the use of renewable energy, there is some potential to increase the use of more environmentally friendly materials for building construction. Timber is still used for house construction in many countries and, as a renewable resource, offers great potential for reducing the environmental impact of the building industry.
Ironically however the construction industry is moving towards construction techniques that have a greater demand for aggregates. The trend towards fast-track building processes in commercial developments requires a greater use of pre-batched material which in turn generates the need for more aggregates. ECOTEC noted this increase in intensity of aggregates use in the period 1984-88 (DoE 1994).
Forecasting
If the need for aggregates can be reduced then the forecasting used in MPG6 can also be revisited. Owens (1997b) counsels caution in challenging the accuracy of forecasts based on projections but Elkins (1997) finds otherwise. He notes the downward pressures upon aggregates demand but finds that ECOTEC, who were responsible for projecting the demand, had done little more than project past trends. In doing so, they had little regard for changes in demand arising from the reduced roads programme and ignored the emerging requirements for long term reductions in the use of primary aggregates. This could have led to a 'sustainable development' scenario for demand forecasts, but the opportunity was passed by.
A review of MPG6 (which is now proposed for 1998) that took account of demand management could potentially reduce the forecasts for aggregate demand. This would have a knock on effect on the regional forecasts and result in a reduced supply requirement for MLPs.
Recycling
Once the demand for aggregates is reduced, the task of supplying the remaining demand from sources other than primary aggregates can be addressed. This represents the soft approach to demand management (Owens 1997b) where one damaging source of material is replaced by another less damaging source. It contrasts with the hard approach discussed above in which the actual demand is challenged.
MPG6 gives considerable support to the use of recycled and secondary aggregates by stating that "aggregates, and products manufactured from aggregates, should be recycled wherever possible. It is also important that where they are technically, economically and environmentally mineral acceptable as substitutes for primary materials, mineral and construction wastes should be used" (DoE 1994 para.33). (See Appendix C for types of material). The MPG goes on to indicate the opportunities for using waste materials in road construction and the role that planning authorities can play in promoting the production and use of these materials in construction projects.
The regional apportionment of the forecasts have been adjusted to allow for a certain level of recycling but at a national level this is only expected to total 40 Mt by 2001 or 13% of total aggregates demand. This compares unfavourably with Denmark where recycled materials now contribute 82% of aggregates used (Elkins 1997). Furthermore, FoE claim that the vast majority of materials currently recycled are in fact used in the construction of landfill sites.
The research indicated that the policy measures being taken by Government in terms of recycling are fairly comprehensive. In terms of the actual use of recycled materials, however, the indications were that there is a long way to go. The availability of the aggregates is extremely limited and even when they can be found there are suspicions in the construction industry about the level of contamination from deleterious materials.
There appears to be a tendency to think of recycling in terms of mobile plant being taken to an individual site during the demolition and clearance phase. This demands a minimum 100 m3 of material to reach the necessary economies of scale. Provision of permanent recycling facilities could enable smaller scale recycling. In the Bristol region however no such facility exists. If it did, it would offer a number of advantages in terms of supplying the local market, producing a higher quality of material than mobile plant (there would be more opportunity for grading and screening), reducing local environmental impact in sensitive sites such as the city centre and using no more transport than that which would be required to remove materials from the site and bring in primary aggregates from a quarry.
Cost is also a factor in discouraging the use of alternative materials. The suspicion is that even if recycled aggregates can be found and if the quality is sufficient for the intended purpose, the price will be such that there is no financial gain to offset the risk of using a material around which doubts remain. This, of course, is not a new problem for emerging markets in environmental products. In the case of renewable energies however, the Government established the Non-Fossil Fuel Order which creates artificial subsidised markets for a fixed number of years in order to get supplies established. The same could be done for recycled materials in order to encourage their use and enable the manufacturers to develop capacity, indeed the Labour Party manifesto supported the public procurement of recycled materials (RICS). The landfill tax also has potential to contribute to the adjustment of relative prices as does a tax on primary aggregates (Maybe 1996).
While the government is committed to promoting secondary materials, in road construction, the practice is sometimes distant from policy. Contractors for the construction of the M49 link at Avonmouth suggested that they could use waste from the Britannia Zinc smelting plant. This would reduce the size of the tip on the smelter site and would also provide a source of local material thus removing the need to bring it in from further afield. The DoT had no in principle objection, but effectively blocked the initiative when they made its use conditional upon downwards renegotiation of the tender price. The obstacle was too much and the idea was dropped.
Specification
The demand for aggregates can also be challenged in the specification of the works. The quality of the materials used in construction are overseen by local Building Control officers but ultimately set by the DoE. The research indicates that the specifications are increasingly adopting higher standards. When this is combined with a desire to achieve high quality and reliable design solutions, there is little willingness or incentive to challenge the need to use alternative materials. Consequently we find that private car parking areas, which do not experience heavy wear, are being laid using grade 1 primary aggregates. Equally infill, which used to comprise broken bricks and rubble, is now specified as primary aggregates. When challenged, the logic for this level of specification is hard to find apart from in the need to ensure the reliability of the materials being used.
MPG6 gives support to greater efficiency of use and identifies specification as an area where margins of quality sometimes appear to be excessive (DoE 1994 para.29). Friends of the Earth however maintain that there is still a high degree of wastage and that builders will over order by a margin of 10%. At the end of construction unused materials are thrown away.
The top-down approach
The process of forecasting the demand and supply of aggregates is very top-down and leaves little flexibility for a minerals planning authority to exercise discretion. Although MPG6 states that "The preparation of development plans provides an important opportunity to test the practicality and environmental acceptability at the local level of the Guidelines figure" (DoE 1994 para 58) the reality is somewhat different with MPAs being instructed that they would have to 'demonstrate very clearly' the reasons why they cannot retain the required production levels (Brundell 1994 cited in Owens 1997a).
This process of top down planning is very similar to the process of calculating housing provision but just as some local authorities are challenging the housing figures, others are challenging the aggregates forecasts and allocations. In the process however they attract not only criticism from neighbouring authorities (Hampshire County Council 1997) that fear the knock-on effects if they have to pick up the slack but also from the DoE which can ultimately refuse to approve the mineral plan for adoption.
In the former county of Avon the problem of local unwillingness to carry the burden of quarrying is manifesting itself in the form of avoiding responsibility. While the unitary authorities have generally welcomed their new found autonomy, in the case of minerals planning they are urging the Joint Strategic Planning and Transportation Unit to take responsibility for apportioning shares of the regional forecast through the replacement Structure Plan. Local sensitivities are too great for them to be prepared to be seen to be willingly accepting continued and expanded quarrying in their areas.
Local politics aside however, the top-down process calls into question the commitment to sustainable development. As communalists, Agenda 21 (UN 1992) and Elkin & McLaren (1991) point out, one of the principles of sustainable development is the involvement of local people and communities in decision making about the environment. Local control is also essential if the ecological footprints are to be reduced. The aggregates system however plainly denies local people a substantive say in whether or not their area should be quarried or mined for aggregates. The only level of debate into which they can enter is the location of the quarries, how they operate and what happens to them after they have been worked out. As such the system is not dissimilar to the process of trunk road planning where it is the Department of Transport which makes the decision as to whether a road is needed after which local people can participate in the decision on the precise route.
The arguments against any change to this system are, however, compelling. Decentralising all decision making would expose the availability of aggregates to NIMBY tendencies and could result in the industry resorting to imported materials. The environmental impact would thereby be exported to another country while the added transportation costs would increase the price of the aggregates substantially.
But therein lies one of the problems of aggregates supply for the people living in one locality bear the environmental cost of the quarrying while people in another location gain the benefit. There is some logic in the argument that local quarries could potentially bond the links between the benefits of local construction projects and the costs of the quarry thereby making it more acceptable to the local population. This would also have design benefits by increasing the use of local materials and reducing the use of standardised materials that contribute to the loss of local distinctiveness.
Nevertheless, it is likely that localised opposition to quarries would persist for amenity reasons if nothing else. Ashton Court quarry supplies a predominantly local market and yet its proposed extension still generates large amounts of opposition. In addition, the greatest proportion of the price of aggregates arises from transportation costs. There is therefore already a major incentive to use local materials.
The other side
In considering the options for the sustainable use of aggregates, the opposite perspective deserves some consideration.
Proponents of the aggregates industry refer to the virtually infinite resource with which they work (Maybe 1996). "We are sometimes reminded that the resources of the earth are 'finite', which is quite true. But.....the limits of the supply of (mineral) resources are so far away that the truism has no practical meaning" (Hore-Lacy 1991). If this is the case, one may ask, what is it that the environmentalists are defending? Furthermore, aggregates are not like a mineral oil which is extracted, burnt and turned into gases and energy. Instead, aggregates remain in a solid state and can therefore be reused or recycled at some future date.
Beyond broader principles of increasing resource use and the implications for sustainable development, the answer must lie in the loss of existing environments. But while the immediate impact of a huge hole where once there was a meadow is undeniable, one has to consider the significance of the change. For the people who can remember its former state the change is enormous, but for future generations the implications are very different. The industry takes every opportunity to refer to those sites where the success of restoration has been such that English Nature have declared the area a SSSI (N.Somerset Council 1996) and implies that any modern quarry will offer the same potential. Future generations may therefore value the product of the aggregates and the restored quarry more than they would the retained meadow. While this may be true of relatively small excavations however, those the size of Whatley quarry in Somerset are unlikely to be anything but enormous holes for generations to come.
So if these are the opportunities for reducing the need and therefore demand for aggregates and especially primary aggregates, how realistic is the potential to execute a reduction in demand?
How achievable is the sustainable use of aggregates?
Intervention in the price mechanism is a key to resolving the debate. Taxation of landfill is already a reality while a tax on primary aggregates is inevitable. Accommodators see this as a viable means for reducing environmentally harmful activities and promoting those which are more benign, without upsetting the balance of the economy. Extension of the principle however could start to address more fundamental issues such as the design, use and reuse of buildings. Transferring those environmental costs which are currently externalised onto the individual scheme would have far reaching consequences for the construction and investment industries but would move towards satisfying the concerns of the ecocentrics. The tool is the same, but the application and the results are different.
Of course, an economy in which the conversion and rehabilitation of existing buildings is the norm would still generate a demand for aggregates. In converting offices to flats, there is a need (at least in terms of conventional ideas as to what a home should look like) to make the building look less like an office block. This can mean stripping the glass and concrete cladding back to the frame and replacing it with brick and plaster cladding. Aggregates are essential to this process.
The further irony is that if the reuse of buildings achieved a certain level, the supply of demolition waste for use as recycled aggregates would diminish. The market would then have to rely upon either secondary aggregates or revert to the use of primary materials, albeit in smaller quantities.
Some representatives of the industry do not believe that recycling can fulfil market demand and this view is compounded by the current approach adopted by MPG6. Having forecast the total demand for aggregates, it then prescribes the amount of recycled and other non-primary materials which it thinks each region should supply. This leaves a forecast supply for primary aggregates. Although the MPG states that these figures may vary according to market forces (DoE 1994 para A.25) it still establishes considerable legitimacy for continued levels of quarrying. To achieve greater levels of recycling, the Policy should offer MPAs comparable reductions in the required production of primary materials. It could also allow landbanks to include stocks of recycled materials.
As already discussed, price and quality are the main determinants in the use of recycled materials. Intervention in the price mechanism offers real potential to increase supply and demand but a programme of education is also needed. The work of the Aggregates Advisory Service and the Building Research Establishment therefore have a central role to play as does the public sector in setting precedents and examples.
The environmental cost of recycling should not, however, be overlooked. Noise and dust will be generated and the problems and costs of transportation will remain as they do for primary aggregates. Ultimately though the great advantage is that the problem of regional disparities between the occurrence and demand for aggregates will be addressed for those areas which have the greatest potential to supply demolition waste for recycling (i.e. the conurbations) are also those where demand for aggregates is greatest.
Addressing the top-down approach and giving local people more say in the aggregates planning process is perhaps one of the hardest issues to address. While reduced demand and local supply of recycled material could allow for more local autonomy there would still be concerns about ensuring the supply of those primary materials still required (Kellett 1995 p.576). There would also be concerns about ensuring that MPAs fully committed themselves to providing supplies of alternative materials and did not opt out of the market altogether. The solution lies perhaps in a different approach to the aggregate planning process in which national guidance is still supplied but from a forum which represents a much wider body of interest than at present (government and industry only) and which responds to the environmental agenda in a more proactive fashion.
Opinions on the feasibility of bringing about a more sustainable use of aggregates will obviously be influenced by the standpoint of the respondent.
The research revealed perhaps predictable opinions. The minerals policy officer took the view that existing planning guidelines have gone as far as is reasonably possible and that the task now lies in implementing the policies. Beyond that it becomes a question of society's priorities.
The Quantity Surveyor was sympathetic to ambitions to reduce the use of aggregates, especially primary, but admitted that even his own practice did little to challenge existing practices of specifying grade one virgin materials.
The environmentalist takes the radical approach and considers a fundamental change in policy and approach to be inevitable and unavoidable. The question for her is, do we do it now or later?
The literature as well reveals the diversity of opinion. Environmentalists promote the idea of environmental capacity and query the legitimacy of demands (Owens 1996 p.67). As a result, policies for hard demand management have to be adopted. Some representatives of the industry however (Kempley 1997) reject any suggestion of demand management and even question the ability of recycling to significantly reduce the demand for primary aggregates while others (Deakin 1997, Maybe 1996) focus upon soft demand management initiatives and reject suggestions of a hard approach.
These views reflect the spectrum of approaches to the environmental crisis from ecocentrism to technocentrism.
The technocentrics, as supporters of the technical fix and maintaining the status quo, will reject proposals which require a fundamental review of the market's approach to construction and investment in property. They will adhere to the need to sustain economic growth and thus increased use of resources and consequently the underlying problems of inequity and poverty remain unaddressed and with it the concept of sustainable development. They also argue that the supply of aggregates is to all intents and purposes infinite and should therefore be used for the benefit of the economy. Attempts to limit aggregate demand represent a fundamental threat to the survival of the industry (Kempley ibid) and could ultimately lead to the loss of wealth and employment.
Ecocentrics, on the other hand, consider that a fundamental review of the aggregate planning system is essential. Only be reducing the ecological footprint, adopting an eco systems approach and reviewing the value of the future can a sustainable aggregates policy be established. The notion that aggregates supply is almost infinite is not the point. The point instead is that any system which is demand led and which justifies the loss of existing habitats is inherently unsustainable.
The research shows that the sustainable use of aggregates is not a myth and is possible given the potential for demand management and the availability of alternative materials to supply needs. The implications of implementing such a system however challenge so many established interests that, given the assertion that supply is not finite, it will be a long time before the industry accepts any fundamental review of the existing system.
In terms of Ashton Court Quarry however, the argument may not go the way of the ecocentrics. English Nature decided that there was insufficient value in Top Park Field to warrant declaring it a SSSI. At the same time, there could be legitimate needs for primary aggregates especially if they are locally sourced. If the matter is then one of balancing competing demands in an ecosystems approach, the verdict could go the way of the quarry. That conclusion does however assume the prior implementation of the other components of a sustainable aggregates policy so that the needs can be legitimised. This has not yet taken place and so there is a strong argument to be made that ecocentrics should vigorously oppose all applications in order to redress the balance of a system heavily weighted in favour of development.
(Edited) Dissertation awarded Masters in Town & Country Planning at University of the West of England
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