Dr. Alan Thompson, MRTPI, CPD Trainer of Introduction to minerals planning
Like it or not, wherever they are going to be located (grey-belt, brownfield, urban or rural), the country needs more houses, along with all of the associated infrastructure and services that are needed to support them (roads, schools, shops, hospitals, factories etc.). With the change of Government comes a new commitment to get things moving. Planners throughout the UK will need to grapple with finding space for everything, as well as supporting the need for clean energy and implementing Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
However, what nobody has mentioned, the houses, infrastructure and windfarms all require building materials: especially construction aggregates (crushed rock, sand and gravel). These are all relatively low value bulk commodities, which in most cases have to be sourced indigenously rather than being imported.
Data published by the Mineral Products Association reveals that building a new house typically requires around 200 tonnes of construction aggregates, from the foundations up to the roof tiles – quite apart from the myriad other mineral products required within the house itself (copper piping, glass produced from silica sand, granite worktops, etc. etc.). That figure rises to around 2,000 tonnes of aggregate for a for local supermarket; 15,000 tonnes for a new school, and 50,000 tonnes for a community hospital. A single mile of new motorway requires around 20,000 tonnes of aggregate (of various types), and every new wind turbine requires a concrete base of around 1,000 tonnes. All of these requirements are routinely supplied by the minerals industry, but a marked increase in activity will entail a considerable increase in demand. Excellent news for economic growth but the materials have to come from somewhere and, sooner or later, there will be a need for new quarries.
This, of course, is where the minerals planning system comes in. Often seen by Town Planners as the Cinderella of the profession, it is of vital importance in helping to deliver other forms of development. Without it, there would be significant shortages of essential minerals, delays in construction and the risk of planning by appeal each time there is a need for a new quarry. Minerals planning allows for such things to be anticipated and planned far in advance, taking account of spatial differences in where the demand is likely to be and where the mineral resources are located. The two things are rarely in the same place.
It is also worth recognising that, through carefully planned restoration, quarries can make a very substantial contribution to Nature Recovery. In fact, they already do. New quarries rarely destroy areas of rich biodiversity, but they offer amazing scope for increasing it, by creating a great diversity of new landforms and habitats, and by helping to create important wildlife corridors.
Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) has just been introduced for housing developments, but it has effectively been around for decades in the world of quarrying, with many spectacular examples of habitat and wildlife enhancements following mineral extraction, throughout the country. Many of these have been associated with the RSPB’s ‘Nature After Minerals’ programme, which has been running since 2010, but others have evolved over much longer periods. Over the last 14 years, the industry has created over 83km2 of priority habitat and has a further 110km2 planned. Many of these sites have become national nature reserves, local nature reserves or Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Alongside the biodiversity, quarries are also able to reveal fascinating examples of geodiversity, adding greatly to our knowledge of the country’s geology and providing well-managed educational assets.
So … all is not lost! Mandatory housing targets inevitably mean more building which, in turn, means more demand for construction aggregates and other minerals. However, by integrating minerals with all other aspects of land use planning the situation can be managed.
We just need to join the dots …. Housing ….. Minerals ….. Nature Recovery.
To do this, we need an influx of new minerals planners who have the skills needed to bring things together and others working with minerals planners and will also need a basic understanding of mineral planning.
To learn more, join us for the ‘Introduction to minerals planning’ online CPD Masterclass I will lead at RTPI. This masterclass is available for planners and non-planners who are interested in this topic and want to gain a solid understanding of the basics.
