mineral permission

We urge the Government to reduce from 60 to 10 years the life of minerals permissions through new legislation, as proposed in the consultation paper.

We warmly welcome the Government's determination to tackle environmental problems caused by old minerals permissions.

Minerals permissions are long lasting, although review procedures have been introduced [7].

If this is to happen we believe the Government must get to grips with the immense problems stored up in the legacy of old minerals permissions.

Outdated mineral planning consents The minerals planning system faces the issue of old minerals permissions.

Alongside our desire to see new legislation, we believe that it is essential that positive action is taken immediately to tackle all existing minerals permissions.

Many ancient woods are threatened by mineral permissions that were granted many years ago when policies were different, but which are still valid.

This duty is essential to ensure MPAs take decisive action to upgrade extant minerals permissions.

As stated earlier, the key to achieving serious progress in the review and upgrading of old minerals permissions lies in amending the existing compensation regime.

The flaw in this Act is the requirement on planning authorities to pay compensation for restrictions and revocations of existing minerals permissions, including IDOs.

SEH was concerned at the continual lack of any requested information on the mineral permissions granted for Western Milos as Greece always stressed that national significance.

However, in November 2009, the clay companies, Sibelco and Imerys, produced a report reviewing old mineral permissions under the Environment Act 1995 with a view to joining up two pits.

Most old permissions have inadequate operating and restoration conditions and recent legislation requires that mineral permissions be periodically reviewed and updated every 15 years to ensure conditions remain up to date.

In 1995 an application by RMC Aggregates to extend the quarrying further east was denied as parliament tightened up on environmental problems caused by old mineral permissions granted between 1948 and 1981.

However, we do not favour a recurring blanket review but propose that all new minerals permissions, as well as existing ones following initial review, should include conditions specifying the timing and content of subsequent reviews.

In addition to the old mineral permission appeals which are decided by the Secretary of State, 11 other cases received in that period were recovered for his decision, of which 7 cases were opencast coal extraction (on 6 sites).

Given our preferred strategy for the review and upgrading of minerals permissions described above, we do not feel it is necessary to extend the IDO provisions under the 1991 Act to other permissions, as suggested in the consultation paper.

These were broadly based on the recommendations of the 1976 Stevens Committee Report on Planning Control over Mineral Workings, which proposed that mineral permissions should be reviewed periodically and modified, where necessary, to bring them up to date.

The Carmel Woods case helps highlight the enormous difficulty of challenging the validity of IDO claims under the 1991 Act and also helps keep the spotlight on the legacy of old minerals permissions which planning authorities are powerless to tackle under the 1981 Act.

Not only will the proposed reorganisation plunge local government into confusion and uncertainty for a number of years, during which we can expect little progress with the review and upgrading of old minerals permissions, but the resulting structure of small unitary authorities is very unlikely to deliver either the resources or the strategic perspective required to implement the proposed review.