Request for equity over aggregate tax anomaly

FOLLOWING the recent submission of several planning applications for dimension stone production with the recycling of associated mineral waste to produce aggregate materials, The Mineral Planning Group (MPG) have issued a call for equity over what they say appears to be an anomaly in the aggregates levy.

Traditionally, the large volumes of quarry waste produced by dimension stone quarries have been returned to the excavation as waste material for restoration purposes, a process that has resulted in some quarries becoming ‘waste bound’.

This has two detrimental consequences. First, it can sterilize valuable deposits of dimension stone and means that new quarries have to be opened up to continue to meet demand; and secondly, it can substantially increase the cost of extracting dimension stone as the mineral waste may have to be handled several times during the life of a quarry to allow full access to the stone below.

MPG have advised several of their clients of one potential solution – crushing/screening a proportion of their quarry waste to produce a low-specification aggregate suitable for use as general fill, sub-base etc, that would otherwise have to be met from primary resources or, ironically, other sources of recycled secondary aggregates exempt from the aggregate levy, such as slate waste.

However, in practice, MPG say many dimension stone quarry operators do not recycle their quarry wastes as secondary aggregates because of the anomalous requirement to pay aggregates levy on the recycled product.

MPG say the Government’s current advice on the classification of recycled mineral waste material is clear and unequivocal. Aggregates which originate as a waste of other quarry and mining operations are defined in the ‘Collation of the results of the 2005 Aggregate Minerals Survey for England & Wales’ as ‘secondary aggregates’. Equally unequivocal, they say, is the Government’s advice that secondary aggregates should be used in preference to primary aggregates in terms of their sustainability.

Calling on the Government for some equity, Martin Millmore of The Mineral Planning Group said: ‘If the recycling of quarry wastes as a secondary aggregate were to be exempted from the aggregates levy there would be substantial benefits to both the dimension stone industry and the construction industry. There would, likewise, be a benefit to the Government’s clear policy of encouraging recycling of waste as a more sustainable option than production and use of primary aggregates.

‘At present, the production of a ‘secondary aggregate’ from dimension stone waste is being priced out of the market by the aggregates levy, countering the sustainability principles encouraged by the Government and increasing primary aggregate production and imports.

‘All we are asking is for the Government to ‘do the right thing’. If recycled slate waste does not carry the aggregate levy, why should recycled dimension stone waste be treated any differently?’