BASE HEADER

Analysis of the site submissions indicates that there could be deposits of sand and gravel under three of the sites put forward for potential housing development:

Site 2
Site 3
Site 6

Part of site 4 lies within a sand and gravel Minerals Safeguarding Area as it is directly adjacent to an area of sand and gravel resource. There may therefore be an opportunity for the adjacent sand and gravel resource to be worked in the future. Plans of the above site showing sand and gravel resource areas ( and subsequent Minerals Safeguarding Areas) are also attached for your information.

It must also be noted that part of the area identified under Site 6 has been submitted as a potential sand and gravel site for possible allocation in the Minerals Core Strategy. The site submission (Site 20 - Land South of Baginton) can be viewed on pages 142 - 144 of the Minerals Core Strategy Revised Spatial Options consultation document ( www.warwickshire.gov.uk/mineralscorestrategy ). We are still in the process of assessing the sites and the information submitted and no decisions have been made at this stage. However, if any of the above sites, particularly Site 6, are taken forward as a preferred option for housing within the Warwick District Council Core Strategy, we would request that we are notified and consulted at all stages as the Local Development Framework progresses.

In order to prevent the sterilisation of proven resources of sand and gravel by non mineral development, we would request that all sites that appear to lie on deposits of sand and gravel area examined further in order to indentify the amount of deposit under the land. If it is apparent that there are large deposits, the area should be safeguarded, and as much mineral extracted as economically viable prior to any development taking place. Minerals safeguarding is not a method whereby development can be stopped, but simply a way of ensuring that resources are used sensibly and sustainably, as set out in the objectives of Minerals Policy Statement 1 (MPS1). It may be necessary to engage with the minerals industry at an early stage to examine whether mineral operations are required prior to development.

We have undertaken a Minerals Safeguarding exercise with the British Geological Survey which identified minerals resources in the county. The safeguarding maps define where we would need to be consulted i.e. in Mineral Safeguarded Areas (MSAs)/Mineral Consultation Areas (MCAs) (MSAs and MCAs share the same boundaries) and these areas have been included on the site plans. The study is available to download at www.warwickshire.gov.uk/mineralscorestrategy and we will be supplying you with this information in GIS format shortly. When the Minerals LDF is adopted we expect that these MSA/MCA areas will be covered in a safeguarding policy. We would like to see a policy reference in the Warwick District Core Strategy to minerals safeguarding to draw attention to developers of the need to take this issue into account when submitting planning applications.

We have not yet determined all of the thresholds whereby sites need to be flagged up but it should include most of the larger sites such as strategic housing (and employment) sites. Where there are large scale allocations or planning applications within MSAs/MCAs (over a threshold of possibly 1ha) a mineral resource survey would need to be undertaken and if this reveals that economic deposits exist then the material should be extracted prior to the development and used on site during construction. This can help to reduce carbon emissions substantially if sand and gravel does not have to be transported long distances. In addition if resources are sterilised by non-mineral development it means that more sand and gravel is required from new and existing quarries. We note that sand and gravel extraction was undertaken prior to housing development on the land to the south west of Warwick, which was identified as a Preferred Area for sand and gravel extraction in our 1995 Minerals Local Plan.

It may be that you have considered this issue in dealings with potential developers. However, as the Core Strategy progresses, I would request that the issue of Mineral Safeguarding is incorporated into a policy within the Core Strategy in line with our previous consultation responses, to prevent it from being dealt with on an ad hoc 'site-by-site' basis.