Aggregates aggravation

We in the metropolis are not accustomed to think very often about aggregate extraction, but we ought to, because London is a primary consumer of the stone, gravel and sand required by the construction industry.  Large tracts of countryside are blighted by quarrying and gravel extraction and villages shaken by the passage of heavy lorries.  Nearly two years ago the government introduced the ‘Aggregates Levy’, with the aims of making their price better reflect the social and environmental costs and to provide a fund for projects to reduce or ameliorate the impact of quarrying past and present. 

The Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund has provided £29.3 million in 2 years for the environmental and heritage, of which £9.1 million were spent by English Heritage on 93 projects.  It is not all good news however.  As revealed at a recent conference and in Defra’s own Mid Term Evaluation (obtainable on www.defra.gov.uk/environment/ ) this sudden influx of money caused problems.  Grants had to be applied for and spent within two years. This militated against both long-term projects and applications from small organisations that who needed longer to mobilise.  Not all the grants were wisely made, some had only marginal relevance to aggregate extraction and no-one seems to have thought out an over-arching research strategy. 

Meanwhile at Thornborough* in North Yorkshire three very impressive earthwork henges, with associated barrows, a cursus and pit alignments making up an extensive Neolithic ritual landscape, are threatened by a planning application to extend existing gravel quarries.  This might lead to the henges being left on islands surrounded by marshy lakes.  One hopes that recent archaeology in the area will give the local authority a better understanding of the importance of maintaining the henges in their context.  Elsewhere the problem is often that aggregate extractors still hold planning permissions granted many years ago that would not be granted today.  The Levy will continue for at least another three years, so hopefully some of this rich windfall can be spent to buying-out these rights and lifting a blight from many threatened locations.

*More details of the Thornborough controversy can be found in Current Archaeology No 189 and the website www.friendsofthornborough.org  A petition to sign will be available at the January meeting.