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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I congratulate the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on securing the debate, and on his speech. I know he will understand that my response must necessarily avoid comment on the details of the case, because the Secretary of State no longer has any jurisdiction in the matter. Indeed, the legal processes in the case are complete. However, I want to make it clear at the outset that the Government recognise and understand the real concerns raised locally by quarrying and its impact on the environment. Successive Governments have sought to respond to those concerns, and to achieve a sensible balance between the interests of the economy and the construction industry and those of the environment. That is reflected in primary legislation.
I shall return to the planning processes of the Conygar quarry case shortly. For the avoidance of doubt, it is important to set out the stages through which the consideration of the quarry has passed. First, however, I shall set out the legislative position in some detail, as it is important to explain clearly the purposes of the reforms of recent years.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, successive Governments have accorded the reform of old quarrying permissions considerable priority in recent years, and I want to remind the House of the progress that has been made.
The modern reform of the mineral planning system began as far back as 1976 with the publication of the Stevens committee report. Its recommendations formed the basis of the Minerals Act 1981, which is now consolidated in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and is the cornerstone of modern mineral planning legislation. The 1981 Act introduced a duty on mineral planning authorities--in current terms, the counties, unitaries and national park authorities--to review and make orders updating mineral permissions, and established that the minerals industry should bear part of the costs under the polluter pays principle.
However, the provisions in the 1981 Act for review and updating of conditions did not work well in practice. Mineral planning authorities were reluctant to risk incurring compensation liabilities, which were difficult to assess, in advance of using their order-making powers. The shortcomings of the 1981 Act were recognised, and, as a result, two further pieces of legislation were enacted to deal with them.
The first was the Planning and Compensation Act 1991. The then Government legislated to reform interim development order planning permissions. They were the earliest remaining mineral permissions in the United Kingdom, and were granted under interim development orders between 1943 and 1948, chiefly to meet wartime needs and the demands of post-war reconstruction. Conygar quarry is one of those IDOs, and received its permission in 1947.
Those permissions had few, if any, planning conditions attached, and in many cases records of their existence had been lost. Under the 1991 Act, IDO permissions had to be registered with local mineral planning authorities and then submitted to them for updating of their working and restoration conditions.
All IDO permissions remain valid and cannot legally be revoked without compensation. That is consistent with the wider general principles of planning and property law. There is no compensation for the cost of complying with new conditions, but our planning guidance makes it clear that conditions imposed on active sites should not
On the whole, those reforms have worked well over the years, and are delivering real benefits as older quarries are brought up to modern environmental standards. In recent years, the responsible members of the quarrying industry have taken steps to be good neighbours, and to reduce the environmental impact of their operations. As society looks towards higher environmental standards, the industry's standards will also have to rise. I look to the industry for a positive response in cases of difficulty, so that local harmony and good relations between quarry operators and local populations can be sustained.
The Environment Act 1995 built on that earlier success and made provision for similar reforms to deal with permissions that were granted between 1948 and 1982. The details of that legislation are not relevant tonight, except in one important aspect.
It is very important that, once modernised, mineral permissions do not slip back again. None of us wants to be continually confronted with this issue. The Environment Act 1995 therefore provides for periodic reviews, at 15-year intervals, of all mineral permissions, irrespective of the date on which they were granted, to ensure that, once modernised, they are kept in line with current environmental standards and best practice. This is a particularly important aspect of the reforms, and has clear benefits.
The overall aim of the review process, which successive Governments have supported, is to ensure environmentally sound outcomes while not prejudicing economic viability. The hon. Gentleman made that point.
I want to outline the sequence of the planning processes involved in the Conygar quarry case, so that the Department's role is clear and transparent. Conygar quarry received its planning permission in 1947. It was registered as a dormant site under the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 by the then Avon county council. The mineral planning authority for the quarry now is North Somerset district council.
An application to reactivate the quarry was made by Conygar Quarry Ltd., and was the subject of an appeal to my Department. A planning inspector visited the site on 2 July 1996 and, after a thorough and independent consideration of all the issues, reported to the then Secretary of State on 22 November 1996. As no decision had been issued before the general election, the matter fell to be determined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. He agreed with the inspector's recommendations on the conditions to govern this case and issued his decision letter on 25 June 1997.
The recommendations included conditions on traffic, time limits on blasting, and vibration limits in line with Government guidance. As the hon. Member for
Woodspring raised some of those issues in his speech, I should like to respond briefly on each. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in the decision letter and in the inspector's report, considerable attention was given to conditions regulating traffic weights, access and signing. The hon. Gentleman referred to passages from the inspector's report.
The report included conditions governing automatic wheel and chassis washes, and the sheeting of lorries to provide for the cleanliness of roads leading to and from the public highway and of vehicles leaving the site. Traffic conditions were also included to control access to and from the highway, to provide for the display of on-site signs showing recommended vehicle routes, to warn HGV lorry drivers visiting or leaving the quarry about local schools, and to prohibit night-time working.
The inspector gave careful consideration to the issue of output from the site in paragraphs 114 to 122 of his report and produced firm recommendations. Indeed, he recommended a shorter period for controlling the average output from the site and allowed for more frequent monitoring. He considered that this
As the hon. Member for Woodspring referred to two passages in the inspector's report, it is right that I should refer to the relevant recommendations. I shall quote from paragraph 40 of the inspector's report because the hon. Gentleman quoted from it and spoke about potential danger to schoolchildren. The paragraph ended with the following words which the hon. Gentleman did not quote:
The inspector also recommended blasting conditions providing for limits on the timing of blasts and on ground vibrations. I accept that these may differ from those desired locally, but the inspector made firm recommendations on the type of blasting conditions that were appropriate and in line with published guidance and, therefore, they were accepted by my right hon. Friend.
I understand that there has been some concern about the end date of the permission. I want to address the end date issue specifically as it is important that it is clearly understood. Many old mineral permissions that were granted planning permission before 1982 were open-ended. That is to say, they had no end date whatever.
The Minerals Act 1981 recognised that that was unacceptable, and imposed a time limit of 60 years on all permissions which at that time were open ended.
In the case of Conygar quarry, the 60-year life runs to 2042. I recognise that that date is still considered to be much too long. However, the then Government concluded that it would not be right to change the date. Consequently the 2042 date can be changed only by agreement between the operator and the mineral planning authority. If the mineral planning authority alters the date unilaterally, it risks liability for compensation.
The inspector considered the end date of Conygar quarry, but pointed out that, although the mineral planning authority would have liked to curtail that date, schedule 2(1)(c) of the 1991 Act allowed no scope for that to be done. However, the Secretary of State made it clear in the decision letter that, although the legislation does not permit variation of the 2042 condition, nothing in practice prohibits operations on the site ceasing before the end date.
The operator, the mineral planning authority and any interested third parties had a right to challenge the Secretary of State's decision in the High Court within six weeks of the date of the decision letter--that is, by 6 August. No such challenge was made, the legal avenues are now closed and the Secretary of State has no further jurisdiction in the matter.
That is not to say that no further avenues are open should the circumstances surrounding the site change. As I have mentioned, under the provisions of the Environment Act 1995, all mineral permissions are subject to periodic review. That means that the quarry will be subject to periodic review at least twice more--in 2012 and in 2027--before the planning permission expires.
Furthermore, if North Somerset district council, as the mineral planning authority, considers that action is needed sooner than the next 15-year review--because, for example, the planning circumstances have changed materially since the decision letter was issued--it can modify or revoke the permission using its order-making powers, but it may have to pay compensation to the operators if it does so.
"fundamentally effect the economic structure of the operation."
For dormant sites--sites where there was no substantial working for the two years between May 1989 and April 1991--full modern conditions may be imposed without compensation. Full planning guidance is given on the operation of the 1991 Act in mineral planning guidance notes 8 and 9.
"would prevent the possibility that a long high peak in production could lead to very high levels of traffic over a protracted period."
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State saw no reason to disagree with that, and imposed conditions accordingly.
"I am satisfied, therefore, that there is a need for a condition preventing the distribution of stone at times when the lorries are most likely to come into conflict with other road users."
In paragraph 44 of his report the inspector turned to the subject of the safety of schoolchildren. He states:
"In my experience, the peak time for arrival at schools is short and well defined. On the specific evidence, it seems to me that a period of restriction from 8.30 to 9.15 would not be unreasonable".
Paragraph 46 makes the following recommendation:
"No vehicle in excess of 1 tonne laden weight shall enter or leave the quarry except between the hours of 07.30 am--08.30 am, 09.15 am--3.00 pm and 4.00 pm--6.00 pm Mondays to Fridays inclusive and 08.00 am--1.00 pm on Saturdays. These restrictions shall not apply at times of the year when both the East Clevedon Primary School and the Clevedon Secondary School are not in session."
That obviously reflects the inspector's concern for the safety of schoolchildren.
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