‘Sir Ralph, You Are Never Going To Believe This But…’

Three decades after its publication, Nigel Jackson reflects on how the seminal Verney Report helped to shape today’s aggregates industry and contemplates the challenges facing the industry over the next 30 years

It is time to think about the future and sustainability of the aggregates industry, not for five years, not for 10, but for the next 25 years — the next generation. Why? Because it is possible that there is going to be a horrible coincidence of challenges for both citizens and practitioners alike during this period.

Whether it is energy, water or aggregates, these fundamental resources are all likely to display common features of continuing and probably rising demand coupled with increasingly constrained supply. Consequently, we should contemplate how we can best plan our response to the long-term need for aggregates in a more strategic way.

But before looking forward perhaps we need reminding that this is by no means a novel idea.

Looking back

First there was the ‘Report of the Advisory Committee on Sand and Gravel’, chaired by A.H.S. Waters in January 1948. This was complemented by the report of the ‘Mineral Development Committee’ in July 1949, chaired by Lord Westwood, while in 1967 the Minerals Consultative Committee met under the remit ‘to keep under review present requirements and forecast demands for mineral resources’.

There are some quite contemporary sustainability and strategic themes within these works, including a reference by Mr Waters to a possible aggregates levy.

In the mid-1970s the Stevens report, ‘Planning Control Over Mineral Workings’, and Sir Ralph Verney’s seminal report on the Advisory Committee on Aggregates, ‘Aggregates: The Way Ahead’, were published and between them effectively created the architecture for the minerals industry, and particularly the aggregates industry, as it is today.

In broad terms the aggregates sector has operated far better post-Verney than pre-Verney. However, Verney was different from the work that pre-dated it. It really did try to ‘blue sky’ the future long-term provision of aggregates because of the perceived difficulties of maintaining supplies of sand and gravel into South-East England. Verney glimpsed the future but as with all glimpses what you think you see may not actually be what is really there.

Consequently, 30 years on, there is merit in looking back at some aspects of Verney to appreciate why we are where we are, to see what lessons can be learned and to help take a longer-term and more strategic view.

When Verney was written it could not contemplate the growing influence of the European Union or the effects of devolution in the UK, sustainable development had not been invented, the environmental movement was still in its infancy, and the Internet had not even been heard of.

While the existing system has been extremely effective in contemplating likely levels of demand and components of supply for short- and medium-term planning and policy work, there may be a need to strengthen our understanding of the potentially workable resources we have available and the sustainability of all components of supply to contribute for the long term.

Verney on resources

The good news is that there is no need to panic; the only national resource figures that have ever been published were in Verney and indicate that the 30,000 years of caveated and cautioned aggregate resources identified by the British Geological Survey (BGS) are now down to just 29,970 years!

The only problem is that, for mineral planning purposes, 84% now lies in other countries – Scotland and Wales. Factoring this in would suggest that England now has less than 5,000 years of potential resources remaining.

The calculation of these figures has been discussed with the BGS and they would be the first to point out that they paint a very broad resource picture and that the numbers game should not be overplayed. The fact is we have not identified clearly where or estimated what our potentially workable resources for the long term actually are.

What we can say, however, is that potentially workable resources are far more abundant than most appreciate, but that our current approach to constraint management may be giving us the impression that we have a resource problem when in fact what we really have is an access and, perhaps, an attitude problem.

The following is an example of what resource uncertainty can do. Verney considered eight different scenarios for supplying the South-East, which hinged on the key underlying assumption that notwithstanding the indicative estimate of 30 billion tonnes of aggregate resources available, which represented 600 to 700 years of supply, once you took into account all the constraints this would reduce to only 10–15 years. So there is the range: 10–700 years!

Fortunately, SERPLAN picked up this issue some 13 years later and procured an excellent report entitled ‘Sand & Gravel in South-East England, Deposits and Constraints’, which estimated that workable resources of between 2.5 billion tonnes and 13 billion tonnes might be available in the South-East, and which at Verney’s annual drawdown rate would in theory be sufficient for between 63 and 325 years. So what are we to conclude?

Verney contemplated that the South-East would have been empty between 1985 and 1990, whereas SERPLAN implied that this would occur somewhere beyond 2050. As a result of Verney’s concerns about aggregate supplies, some readers may recall that the review of MPG6 1989 contemplated that up to six ‘superquarries’ would be contributing up to101million tonnes per annum to UK production by 2011.

Indeed, Verney anticipated up to 50 million tonnes per annum contributing to the
South-East’s needs from ‘superquarries’ in Scotland and from underground mining in
Kent alone. This compares to the Quarry Products Association’s current estimate of South-East consumption of around 45million tonnes per annum, of which just under half is still supplied from land-won and marine sand and gravel.

Some in the industry did not accept the scenario at the time and made their views known to the Department of Environment (ODPM’s predecessor department) in 1993 explaining why this was ridiculous.

It appears that Verney may have got the timing and dimension of the South-East problem wrong by overestimating demand and underestimating supply. Nonetheless, the work was an important wake-up call and stimulated the shift in the supply mix more quickly than might otherwise have been the case.

Learning the lessons

The SERPLAN exercise introduced some additional rigour and systematics into the situation. While not an easy exercise to undertake, it is significant and should arguably become RAWP best practice, preferably underpinned by the BGS’s excellent GIS capability and general expertise and then consolidated at the national level.

If we genuinely want to achieve prudent use of our aggregate resources we may have to accept that while Verney may have been premature with some of his conclusions, the big picture, and more importantly the process of strategic review, remains valid provided it is based upon reasonable data.

Demand forecasting

Demand forecasting is probably the one topic where not so long ago contributors had to agree to disagree. ODPM should therefore be commended for striking a sensible approach to what has historically been an unnecessarily contentious subject.

All participants in the mineral planning world need some form of estimate of likely demand to be able to contribute to policy guidance. It need not be unnecessarily mathematical but it needs to be sufficiently rigorous, realistic and quantitative to be credible to the main players.

While the forecast may or may not be regarded as a target to be met, without it operations would take place in an anarchic vacuum where the tensions would only be worse. Readers with long memories will remember the planning lottery which pre- dated Verney and which made it virtually impossible to plan a business or make a good planning decision.

Verney was right to advocate the need for forecasts but the real challenge lies in identifying the means of supply and, more importantly, the location of supply.

Supply solutions

Verney’s supply solution for the South-East recommended the release of a lot of sand and gravel-bearing land in areas of high demand for 10–15 years while other solutions were put in place.

For the longer term he advocated increased use of waste, more rail-borne supplies, better restoration to allow the release of higher-grade sand and gravel-bearing land, more marine aggregates, an examination of underground mining potential and the creation of coastal ‘superquarries’.

These were profound conclusions and ideas, some of which seem familiar and some which still seem ahead of their time. Underground mining in Kent still seems far away and the aggregates industry has yet to go plural on coastal ‘superquarries’.

But the starting point has moved on and the industry has already evolved from the local production and supply business model of the 1970s to a hybrid model involving local, regional, national and even international supply of primary aggregates, with local supply of recycled materials and regional supply of secondaries.

Furthermore, legitimate and illegitimate concerns about the impacts of supply on communities, powerfully expressed by local, regional, national and international organizations, mean that the justifications for extracting and using aggregates need to be more forcefully articulated.

In broad terms, MPS1 can help provide this but neither it nor the anticipated annex will be able to address the capacity of each element of supply to contribute beyond 2016, now less than 11 years away – less than half a generation.

So, what are the sustainable supply scenarios for the longer term?

Recycled and secondaries

It is quite right to consider the alternatives first, which the QPA now accepts as the first component of supply.

It finally appears to be broadly accepted that we are close to maximizing the contribution that recycled construction and demolition waste can make to supply. Rather than the philosophy, the issue is now more about the availability of waste and obtaining planning permissions for new sites in key markets.

What we see currently is probably not far short of what we will have to assume going forward. We are at around the 90% level of what is achievable. Whether the secondary aggregates of slate, china clay, slag and mine waste can make much more of a contribution quickly is uncertain and to what extent remains debatable.

As the coal mining industry in England continues to diminish mine waste’s prospects lessen, and with many slate tips in North Wales now regarded as industrial heritage some questions may need to be asked about the sustainability of these elements to supply over the long term.

But the industry has got the message and these materials will continue to make a steadily growing contribution over time, albeit limited by poor infrastructure and logistics constraints.

In spite of the uncertainties, the QPA believes that achieving an annual contribution of 60 million tonnes per annum from alternatives within the next five years is achievable but then that will pretty much be that. Once the industry has maximized what can be obtained from alternatives there will only be primary aggregates left.

This statement of the patently obvious is worth pausing upon, particularly for those from certain environmental organizations and NGOs. Nobody can recycle away the need for new quarries and primary aggregates. Whether we like it or not, at some point it would amount to real progress if we could at least agree in principle that, once we have maximized the use of alternatives, and unless the Government changes its newly endorsed manifesto of ‘Forward not Back’, the future remains largely dependent upon primary aggregates. If not, we will be going ‘Back not Forward’!

If we want to build sustainable communities we need a sustainable aggregates industry with a sustainable primary aggregate supply capacity.

Marine aggregates

Marine has genuine capacity to increase its contribution provided the licensing system can be made more effective and responsive and potential wharves are safeguarded in key markets.

Certainty is crucial to investment in both replacement and new shipping capacity but currently this is not a feature of the existing licensing and planning system. Marine must remain an essential element of supply but lead times are great and investments are large and assume a long-term life is assured.

The industry can deliver the 20 million tonnes per annum this component can make, and probably more, but to do so it needs more clarity and speed of process to give more certainty. The need for primary legislation, such as the proposed Marine Act, could bring more order to the current licensing regime and is to be welcomed.

Land-won sand and gravel

It is only speculation but if we had regional resource assessments along the lines that SERPLAN produced in 1988 it is likely that we would discover that abundant potentially workable resources of sand and gravel remain throughout most regions of England.

Equally, however, as our sustainable communities become even more effective at fighting each and every planning application for replacement greenfield sites, our ability to access them is likely to diminish. If we need 80 million tonnes of land-won sand and gravel in the future we can produce it, but only if allowed and only if we can maintain our ability to restore using inert wastes.

The current anti-inert policy agenda promoted by DEFRA and practised by parts of the Environment Agency is of real concern and may ultimately govern the capacity that sand and gravel can contribute to future supply. In a restoration-led industry the lack of inert waste for restoration purposes could mean that permission to excavate cannot be obtained in the first place, especially if bird-strike policies preclude water-based restoration. This double grip, which negates two key restoration solutions, poses a serious threat to the majority of future sand and gravel resources in the East Midlands and elsewhere.

Crushed rock

Crushed rock is currently the biggest component of supply, representing nearly 50% of primary supply and nearly 40% of total supply.

We are fortunate to have many significant rock quarries and many have latent extension potential, but not all do and not all can make a contribution beyond their regional boundary. Who understands this sufficiently well for us to be able to judge whether no problem exists and that existing supply patterns are secure for the long term, or whether, in fact, many are entering the last-chance saloon?

It is now over 25 years since any genuinely new major greenfield rock quarry was permitted. In that time we have probably consumed the best part of 2 billion tonnes of permitted rock reserves without meaningful greenfield replenishment. How many companies have planning applications in preparation for new, large, inland greenfield rock quarries in Middle England?

Imports

Some say there is no need to worry as we will be able to import our supplies. Maybe, maybe not. Even the Norwegian Government has stated ‘it can no longer be said that Norway has unlimited quantities of sand and gravel and hard rock’.

But assuming that Norway is a completely homogeneous lump of granite, which it is not, and assuming that its current level of exports to the UK of 1.6 million tonnes per annum were increased tenfold to around 16 million tonnes per annum, what then? Where could you get it into England? Which ports and rail paths could handle it?

Imports have a role to play; they are part of a solution but this will be limited by the capacity of the coastal infrastructure to receive and distribute to markets at acceptable amenity and environmental cost.

Conclusion

My conclusion for some time has been that, like our national energy policy, we need to keep all our supply options open. No one component of supply has the capacity on its own to solve our long-term supply needs. There is no silver bullet.

We cannot pretend that we can supply our long-term aggregate needs without a lot more marine, local land-won sand and gravel and, crucially, permitting some new, large, inland greenfield rock resources. At the very least we should recognize that existing rail-connected quarries deserve to be regarded as nationally significant and if they can be extended they should be.

These issues cannot be dealt with on an application-by-application basis. They can be touched on in Local Development Frameworks but only so far. Only the RAWPs can gather the building blocks and allow the bigger picture to be established at a national level.

We need to be honest about resources, about the need to replenish them and the difficulties of doing so. We need to be realistic when considering the capacity of alternatives to supply and the continuing imperative for around 200 million tonnes of primary aggregates (about 75% of our annual needs) to be produced year on year up to 2016 and in all probability for the next 25 and probably 50 years.

Pretending that recycling can do the job is like pretending that windmills can replace coal and nuclear power. It will, therefore, take a more forceful political will than that which is currently fragmented in government to stamp the national foot and say ‘needs must’ in the future.

But to help build more confidence among a generally sceptical public the industry will have to continue to improve its environmental performance. While tremendous progress continues to be made there can sometimes be a gap between some of what is said and what actually occurs on the ground. If the industry wants a long-term future there can be no gap. Clean roads, tidy entrances, good perimeters, no dust, no unnecessary noise, clean and professional haulage and good community engagement are the issues that matter to neighbours, not corporate spin.

As an industry we need to become collectively intolerant of poor behaviour and performance. It will take time to achieve best practice, but at the very least we must eliminate worst practice.

Equally, there needs to be more recognition that we do a good job, and when we do it is normally very good. We have so much to be proud of.

In briefly revisiting the origins and heritage of the industry’s licence to operate a lot has been learned. Some things never change but plenty of things do. It is interesting to note that every 25–30 years some form of strategic review takes place in the industry, and it is now 30 years since Verney.

Quarrying is a long-term business. Currently it can take 10–15 years to convert an exploration find into production. When a company buys a new ship it will expect to operate it for 20 years, when a new quarry is opened it can be for 40 years.

Everyone is familiar with the need to make local plans; five or 10 years is a long time for some businesses but for the aggregates industry this is now short to medium term. The regional policy formulation currently in hand does seem to want to address the generational dimension and this is to be welcomed, but it needs to add up to a bigger, more national picture.

Personally, I foresee serious potential production capacity shortfalls emerging as older quarries, mainly rock, demise over the next 10–15 years. I think I am thinking what Verney was thinking.

While this does not mean that we need to panic, it does mean that we need to be thinking about the possibility now. Verney may have been a generation premature with his detailed demand and supply model for the South-East, but his view of the big picture was probably right and helped shift the strategic thinking in the industry to ensure that supplies have not been a problem.

If we were to discover during the next 10–15 years that some 30–40 million tonnes per annum of replacement capacity was required how would we respond? Can we assume that Scotland or Norway could necessarily provide? An abundance of resource does not necessarily convert into an abundance of supply capacity, but even if it did, would it be right? Surely we should look inward at what resources lie within our own continental shelf and coastline before we dump our NIMBYISM on somebody else’s doorstep.

Nobody has all the answers to these and many other pertinent questions, but perhaps the key question is: Are we best organized as an industry (by that I include operators, planners, civil servants and some environmental organisations) to find the answers or can we do better? I believe we can.

Currently, the National Coordinating Group (NCG) is the only, and arguably the best, place for a more strategic approach to be undertaken. I believe that we need to develop the NCG into a better-resourced and more energetic strategic body, possibly a National Aggregates or National Minerals Forum that regularly contemplates the longer term and which continues to recognize the benefit of the work that Waters, Westwood, Stevens and Verney did, and develops it forwards for the next generation.

The next 25 years will be crucial; I suspect it will be the time we all have to pay for the excesses of the past, certainly in energy and water and probably in waste.

I hope, however, that when it comes to aggregates we can look back and say: ‘Sir Ralph, you’re never going to believe this but… we appreciated what you did and while you didn’t get it all right, you did us all a favour and we’re going to learn the lessons for the next generation.’