for Sunday Herald, 25 June 2000
Ministers are paralysed in an agony of indecision over the plan to build a massive superquarry on Harris, prolonging one of Scotland's longest-running and most farcical environmental sagas.
Twelve years after the plan was first conceived and five years after a public inquiry into it finished, there is still no decision in sight from the Scottish Executive. Islanders, environmentalists, MSPs and the developer, Lafarge Redland Aggregates, are all deeply frustrated and increasingly angry at the delay.
According to insiders, the Scottish environment minister, Sarah Boyack, is instinctively opposed to the superquarry, which has assumed an iconic importance for environmentalists. But she has been "tearing her hair out" trying to reach a decision on the issue in conjunction with other colleagues, including the first minister, Donald Dewar.
Her problem is that the inquiry reporter, Gillian Pain, is widely believed to have recommended in favour of the project. Pain's preliminary findings of fact in 1998 made great play of the economic benefits that the quarry would bring to Harris.
Civil servants are also concerned that Pain's report does not do justice to all the ecological arguments canvassed at the inquiry and so could be open to legal challenge by disgruntled objectors. Western Isles Council has previously questioned Pain's ability "to reach sound conclusions" on an environmental issue.
Pain retired as a Scottish Office reporter after the inquiry and was paid on a freelance basis to complete her report. Despite the many technical issues covered at the 100-day inquiry, the longest in Scottish planning history, she had to work without any technical advisors or any transcripts of the proceedings.
One solution to Boyack's dilemma would have been for the Scottish Executive's conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), to have proposed the mountain Roineabhal, the site of the quarry, as a Special Area for Conservation (SAC) under the European Habitats directive. This would have outlawed any development and removed any need for such an awkward ministerial decision.
The Sunday Herald has learnt that the Scottish Executive made this suggestion to SNH earlier this year but was firmly rebuffed. SNH, which was an objector to the superquarry, thought that this would compromise its position and, in any case, doubted whether the wildlife at the site justified such a designation. "SNH was not willing to get the executive off the hook," said one source.
So when the new list of 90 SACs proposed by SNH was announced by Boyack on 14 June, Roineabhal was conspicuous by its absence. "We though the suggestion was a joke," said a spokesman for SNH. "We didn't take it seriously."
Ministers are also coming under increasing pressure to make up their minds from opposition politicians. A motion put down in the Scottish Parliament by 16, mostly Conservative, MSPs points out that Dewar promised at a public meeting in Stornaway last year to reach a decision "in a matter of months". The delay, they say, is "unacceptable and is causing substantial uncertainty throughout the Western Isles."
Put crudely, Larfarge Redland's plan is to replace Roineabhal with a sea loch. The company is aiming to extract about ten million tonnes of a hard, granite-like rock called anorthosite every year for sixty years and export it in vast bulk sea carriers to south east England and Europe for use as aggregate in roads and railways. The hole it would leave would be two kilometres long and one kilometre wide.
At the inquiry the company argued that the superquarry would benefit the island by providing jobs and promised to minimise any environmental damage. Objectors contended that the quarry was unsustainable and there were better ways of creating jobs. There was particular controversy over whether the ballast water imported by the bulk carriers from European harbours would pollute the sea around Harris.
Sarah Boyack's decision is complicated by the many fundamental changes that have taken place since the inquiry finished five years ago (see box). Not only has the government changed and the Scottish Parliament come into being but the company that originally proposed the quarry, Redland, has been taken over by the French aggregates company, Larfarge.
One of the leading objectors at the inquiry, Friends of the Earth Scotland, alleges that Larfarge Redland is now extremely unlikely to invest in the 70 million pound superquarry in the foreseeable future. "The market demand for aggregates has actually fallen since the application was made and the industry itself is now telling the government to presume UK demand will remain flat for the next 20 years," said the group's director Kevin Dunion.
"To find in favour would not bring jobs to Harris, but simply give a multinational company an asset to put on its balance sheet at the price of totally undermining Labour's environmental credibility. There is no getting away from it - this is an acid test of the Executive's willingness to take tough decisions in favour of sustainable development.
"Sarah Boyack has to show that the old equation whereby any promise of jobs outweighs environmental, social and even other economic concerns, such as in fishing and tourism, does not serve the interest of Scotland or Harris. She must take the decision against it."
John Leivers, director of lands and planning at Larfarge Redland Aggregates, denies that his company is losing faith in the superquarry. "I've been working on this application since 1988 and we were taken over by Lafarge in 1997," he said. "In the two and a half years since then no-one from Lafarge has ever suggested to me that we should do anything other than pursue the application."
He argues that the long term need for aggregates for roads and railways is indisputable and more significant than short term fluctuations in the market. "If the suggestion that the report has recommended granting our application is true, we would naturally be delighted and would obviously hope that the Scottish Executive will accept that recommendation and act accordingly as soon as possible," he told the Sunday Herald.
The suggestion that Pain's report has recommended in favour of the superquarry is described as "speculation" by the Scottish Executive. "The report is still under consideration and we have no timescale," said an executive spokeswoman last week. "When the evidence has been assessed there will be a decision as soon as practicable."
The endless procrastination particularly annoys people on Harris, whatever their attitude to the superquarry. According to councillor Donald Maclean, the chairman of economic development for Western Isles Council, the resulting blight is causing real difficulties. "We can't plan for anything if we don't know what the decision is," he said. "I'm not arguing for or against it, I am just pleading. Please, please let us know what the decision is."
THE SLOW PROGRESS OF THE SUPERQUARRY
1988: Redland Aggregates Limited starts preparing an application to dig a superquarry at Lingerbay in the south of Harris.
March 1991: The company formally applies to Western Isles Council for permission to extract anorthosite, a crystalline form of granite used to make roads and railways, from the south Harris mountain, Roineabhal.
June 1993: Western Isles Council grants planning permission for the £70 million project despite objections.
September 1994: A public inquiry into the superquarry opens in a Stornaway hotel on Lewis before the Scottish Office's chief inquiry reporter, Gillian Pain.
June 1995: As the public inquiry draws to a close in Leverburgh School on Harris, Western Isles Council abandons its support for the superquarry and joins the objectors. The inquiry involved 100 days of evidence, more than 100 witnesses and over 400 written submissions, making it the longest in Scottish planning history.
1997: The French company, Lafarge, takes over Redland, but says nothing about its attitude towards the superquarry.
March 1998: The first part of Gillian Pain's report, her findings of fact, is circulated to those who took part in the inquiry. It says the superquarry could bring "very substantial benefit to the local economy" as well as having a "very disruptive effect on the character of the area".
April 1999: The second part of Pain's report, her conclusions and recommendations, is submitted to the Scottish Office.
July 1999: The Scottish Parliament is established, with Donald Dewar confirmed as first minister and Sarah Boyack as environment minister.
January 2000: Pain's final report is still being studied by civil servants, and reportedly has not yet been seen by either Dewar or Boyack.
June 2000: Amidst mounting impatience on all sides, Pain's report is still under consideration. There is no ministerial decision, nor any prospect of one in the near future.
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