Draft Regulation 18 Sandwell Local Plan

Resource Management and New Development

13.67 Managing material resources – including waste - in a responsible way is an important element of sustainable development and will support Strategic Objective 17 of the Plan.

Justification

13.68 The management of material resources including waste in a responsible way is an important element of sustainable development. This policy sets out general principles on waste management and resource efficiency to be addressed by new developments, including requirements to manage large amounts of waste on site or nearby, recycle and re-use products as far as possible.

13.69 The waste hierarchy ranks waste management options according to what is best for the environment.It gives top priority to preventing waste arising in the first place. When waste is created, it gives priority to preparing it for re-use, then recycling, then recovery, and finally disposal (e.g., landfill).

13.70 Achieving zero waste growth and driving waste up the waste hierarchy are important objectives of national policy guidance and the strategy for waste management in Sandwell. Delivering on site-waste management of waste and making better use of waste generated through development are critical to the delivery of these objectives.

13.71 The scale of development across Sandwell presents a major opportunity to influence decisions over how resources are managed and to develop a more integrated and holistic approach towards this at a local level. This policy sets out the minimum requirements for planning applications for all developments to demonstrate how they have addressed waste and resource issues.

13.72 Residential developments should include adequate storage for recyclable and non-recyclable waste pending collection, including storage for recyclable wastes and access for waste collection vehicles.

13.73 The resources and waste management requirements of businesses will be an important consideration in development projects to improve employment areas, town, and district centres. Where feasible, regeneration schemes should include provision for on-site waste management.

13.74 Where organisations are generating significant amounts of a particular type of waste, which is not currently managed in Sandwell, consideration should be given towards waste being disposed of or being recovered at the nearest appropriate facility(s).

13.75 Opportunities for symbiosis – matching waste producers with organisations who might have a use for the waste produced - should be explored.

MINERALS

13.76 Local plans are expected to make sufficient provision for all forms of development, including for minerals. The policies for minerals in this section also support the overall Vision, Objectives and Priorities by ensuring that in 2041, Sandwell will:

• Use mineral resources responsibly, including maximising the use of alternatives to maintain a supply of minerals and mineral products to support the local economy and growth;
• Ensure that other development does not needlessly prevent mineral resources from being worked in the future if it is feasible and economically viable to do so; and
• Manage and use mineral products in ways that avoids significantly harming the environment and the health and wellbeing of local communities.

13.77 Planning policies for minerals should provide for the extraction of minerals of "local and national importance" (NPPF paragraph 210). While sand and gravel, brick clay and fireclay occur naturally in Sandwell, it does not produce any primary minerals. For minerals planning purposes, past trends and future provision is planned at the West Midlands Metropolitan Area (WMMA)^[184] level.

13.78 Despite not producing any minerals itself, it is possible that in some parts of Sandwell there remain mineral resources that are effectively sterilised by their location in an urban area, hence the need for minerals policies in the SLP. As with all unitary authorities, Sandwell is also the minerals planning authority for the borough.

13.79 Mineral Planning Authorities are expected to maintain a landbank of at least seven years of permitted reserves of sand and gravel (NPPF paragraph 213) to ensure a steady and adequate supply of aggregates for the construction industry. This means that sites with planning permission for sand and gravel extraction need to have enough minerals left in them to sustain the expected demand over the whole of the plan period plus seven years beyond that.

Construction Aggregates - Expected Demand over the Plan Period

13.80 Current national policy guidance on minerals identifies past sales as an indicator of current demand for aggregate minerals (NPPF paragraph 207), but as it is not necessarily a reliable indicator of future demand, "other relevant local information" should also be considered when planning for future supplies.

13.81 Data on historic sales of aggregates within the WMMA is contained in the West Midlands Aggregates Working Party (AWP) annual monitoring reports, as informed by the annual aggregates monitoring survey. The latest information available relates to the 2021 calendar year. Sales data for the ten years from 2012 - 2021 and average (mean) sales over the ten-year period are shown in Table 14, compared to the indicative 'apportionment' for the WMMA and the annual requirement from the WMMA LAA 2015. Production of data for specific sites is regarded as commercially confidential, so in line with what has been agreed by the AWP, figures are provided only for total annual production in the WMMA rather than for individual Mineral Planning Authorities.

13.82 The economic recession has clearly had a significant effect on sales of sand and gravel in the WMMA and wider West Midlands region over the ten years up to 2017, which was the latest information available at the time the 2020 Black Country Minerals Study was prepared.

Table 14 - ten-year rolling average annual sand and gravel sales in the WMMA 2011 - 2021 (million tonnes)

Source: WMMA LAA 2023

13.83 Based on the last ten-year average sales figure, the WMMA would need to identify nearly 13 million tonnes of permitted sand and gravel reserves and other potential sand and gravel resources to provide a 'rolling' landbank over the Black Country Plan period. Table 16 below shows how this has been calculated.

13.84 Another indicator of current demand for construction aggregates in the WMMA is provided by the national aggregate minerals surveys, which record consumption of construction aggregates by region and sub-region. The last survey to have been carried out in 2014 found that the WMMA consumed around 1.9 million tonnes of sand and gravel and around one million tonnes of crushed rock in that year.

Table 15 - Sand and Gravel – WMMA Landbank Requirement December 2017

Source: WMMA LAA 2023

13.85 Reliable consumption figures for the pre-recession period are not available for the WMMA. However, data from the 2005 national survey indicates that Birmingham and the Black Country alone consumed at least one million tonnes of sand and gravel and at least 1.7 million tonnes of crushed rock^[186].

13.86 The planned housing and employment growth in Sandwell over the plan period will increase the demand for minerals and will impact on mineral consumption. However, as established in the 2020 Black Country Minerals Study, it is difficult to quantify what the projected housing and employment growth mean in terms of the amount of minerals that needs to be planned for, specifically construction aggregates. The minerals provision in this plan will therefore be continually monitored in conjunction with continued liaison with those Minerals Planning Authorities who form the wider West Midlands region.

13.87 Notwithstanding the above, the requirement to maintain a 'rolling' landbank over Sandwell's Local Plan period of nearly 13 million tonnes for sand and gravel (as set out in Table 15) remains unaffected.

Sand and Gravel Supply

13.88 Solihull is the only authority in the sub-region with workable sand and gravel resources.

13.89 At the end of 2017, Solihull had nearly four million tonnes of permitted sand and gravel reserves. However, a high proportion of these reserves are expected to be sterilised by HS2, and this has already led to the closure of one site (Stonebrook Quarry). It is therefore unlikely that Solihull will be able to sustain the same rates of sand and gravel sales seen over the last ten years, at least in the short-term until new sites come forward.

Crushed Rock Supply

13.90 The last quarry in the Black Country to produce crushed rock (dolerite), Edwin Richards in Sandwell, closed in 2008. As detailed in the 2020 Black Country Minerals Study, there are no winnable crushed rock resources remaining anywhere in the Black Country, therefore no provision is identified for this mineral.

13.91 Coating plants and construction projects in Sandwell are expected to continue to rely on imports of crushed rock from outside the area. The latest information available suggests that most of the crushed rock imported into the West Midlands Metropolitan Area is imported from Leicestershire, Shropshire, and Derbyshire.

Supply of Secondary and Recycled Aggregates

13.92 Secondary and recycled aggregate sites expected to continue in production up to the end of the plan period will be safeguarded (Policy SMI1). Due regard should also be had to the relevant Sandwell Local Plan waste policies (Policy SWA5).

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