PFA is a by-product resulting from the burning of coal in power stations. Due to the mineral qualities of the ash, it can be incorporated sustainably into a range of building products. When used as a replacement for traditional cement, PFA can save close to 1 tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) for every tonne used. This is because cement production is energy and carbon intensive, requiring the raw ingredients to be kilned at around 1,500 degrees centigrade, whereas PFA has already been through a thermal process.

Cement is a binder that hardens when water is added. It is mixed with aggregates to form concrete. Cement and concrete are a fundamental part of today’s world and vital to the global construction sector.

Versatile and long-lasting, concrete buildings and structures are in many ways ideal for climate-resilient construction. However, the problem is that concrete and cement have an immense carbon footprint — around 8% of global emissions caused by humans come from the cement industry alone.

Making Portland Cement, the main cement used today, is the most carbon-intensive part of concrete production. The production of Portland Cement involves kilning raw materials at high temperatures, requiring a large amount of energy. It is estimated that this process can produce up to 1 tonne of carbon for every tonne of cement made.

To put this into perspective, if the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest carbon emitter in the world with up to 2.8 billion tonnes, surpassed only by China and the US.

A Circular Economy is a system that looks to tackle global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste and pollution. A Circular Economy aims to keep products, materials, equipment and infrastructure in use for longer, therefore minimising the creation of waste, pollution and carbon emissions.

Hive Aggregates is proposing to submit a full planning application for RCEP to Nottinghamshire County Council, which is the planning authority for the proposal. This will include an initial round of consultation. The application will be accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

RCEP is classified as a project that requires an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). This process ensures that a wide range of environmental subjects will be taken into consideration including traffic impacts, landscape and visual impacts and ecology. Please visit the ‘documents’ page to read our Environmental Statement along with the January 2024 Environmental Statement Addendum. Each include a Non Technical Summary.

Hive has engaged with NCC and other consultees to consider potential noise impacts. The Amended Proposed Development has been designed to further reduce noise impacts by ensuring that operations take place at a lower level behind the existing lagoon embankments and new bunding/acoustic fencing. Further, detailed noise modelling has also been carried out at the sensitive receptors closest to the RCEP Site, including numerous new locations within the SSSI. The updated assessment demonstrates that noise impacts can be fully management without any significant adverse effects, with further improvement over the originally submitted scheme.

Dust management is placed at the centre of all operational activities and our plan takes full account of the improvements associated with the Amended Proposed Development.

An updated Dust Management and Monitoring Plan (‘DMMP’) has been produced that improves on those measures originally proposed and is more consistent with the higher level of information usually reserved by planning condition. The updated DMMP provides significantly more detail, including:

• A dust and weather monitoring regime;

• 24-hour management measures;

• Open air activities focused in 1% of the extraction area only;

• Use of water bowsers and stationary sprays; and

• Procedures to stop operations in certain weather conditions.

The DMMP has benefitted from the specialist input of Hatfield Site Services (‘HSS’), which has over 20 years’ experience operating mineral processing operations, including PFA recovery operations.

Hive have engaged in positive discussions with the Environment Agency to demonstrate in areas along the site perimeter that the existing lagoon embankment would be retained at a suitable height to adequately manage flood risk, taking climate change into account. There would therefore be no change to the status-quo in the area.

It has been demonstrated that the RCEP Site does not hydraulically connect to the River Idle or it’s floodplain and does not alter existing flow paths or introduce new flow paths for flood water to interact with residential properties.

The assessment submitted with the original application reported the loss of 1.47 ha (0.46%) of the Sutton and Lound Gravel Pits SSSI. While this did not include valuable SSSI features, we have taken the decision to permanently retain the section of SSSI that overlaps with the RCEP Site. This will be done by retaining a large section of the southern lagoon embankment and adding some wetter habitats into the restoration scheme in this area, such as wet woodland; further improving the restoration habitats.

The improved restoration scheme would deliver a Biodiversity Net Gain of over 40 %, which far exceeds policy requirements and would provide valuable habitats from an early stage in the project (after around four years).

There would also be an extensive 30-year aftercare period managed by a qualified steering group, to be secured by planning condition and/or legal agreement.

During operation material will be exported by HGV and the existing priority junction to Bellmoor Industrial Estate will not require modification. An average of three HGVs (six two-way movements) per hour will utilise this junction during operating hours. There will be no HGV movements outside operating hours. We have prepared a Transport Statement which is available to read in ES Volume 3 in the ‘documents’ section of this website.

We will undertake an Air Quality Assessment to consider the potential impacts arising from increased traffic flow as a result of the development on existing residential receptors.

The revised approach to extraction and restoration and its embedded mitigation would reduce the landscape and visual effects of the Proposed Development in a notable way. The changes include the reduction of the area of soil stripping and area of PFA exposed at any given time. The retained sandstone embankments and proposed mitigation bunding would also provide some additional filtering to views from sensitive receptors. The Main Processing Site has been reconfigured to ensure that the silos are positioned in line with and behind the existing silo infrastructure at the Bellmoor Industrial Estate.