Our Proposals
Briggens Estate
The Briggens Estate is an area of land to the east of Stanstead Abbotts (download location plan here). Our site is known as ‘Olives Farm’ which is the northern and western section of the Briggens Estate, covering approximately 175 hectares. We are leasing the land from City & Provincial who are the landowners.
Our Scheme
Tarmac is considering proposals for new sand and gravel quarry on part of the Briggens Estate. Sand and gravel extraction would take place across an area of around 94 hectares over approximately 20 years. The total application area, including the processing plant, water management lagoons and associated infrastructure, would cover approximately 175 hectares. However, extraction would take place over 11 phases. This would enable us to restore completed phases as we go, reducing the amount of land in operation at any one time and allowing us to bring forward biodiversity benefits as the scheme progresses. The site would be accessed from the B181 Roydon Road. The site would then be restored to agricultural land, along with nature conservation habitats.
Key Aspects
- Our indicative scheme proposes to extract the sand and gravel in the western part of the site first (starting in the north then working southwards) before moving eastwards. This means the part of the site closest to Stanstead Abbotts will complete extraction and be restored as early as possible.
- As the scheme only seeks to extract sand and gravel, no blasting is required to extract the aggregate.
- There would be a buffer zone of a minimum 100m between the extraction area and any residential properties, as well as a 30-metre standoff from Lords Wood. An area has been removed from the scheme to provide a substantial buffer with Olives Farm.
- The schemes of working and restoration safeguard, woodland parcels on site and three veteran trees together with other higher value trees and hedgerows.
- The schemes seek to increase woodland cover, thereby maintaining Green Infrastructure provision on site into the future.
- The processing plant would be located centrally within the site in a naturally sheltered position, on a sunken platform to reduce its visual profile.
- Sand and gravel would be transported to the plant by field conveyor rather than by lorry movements within the site to minimise dust.
- During the extraction process, the sand and gravel is inherently damp so there would be limited scope for dust. Dust can be created during the stripping and moving of soils which is similar to that of agricultural operations, such as ploughing fields.
- Site access would remain from the B181 Roydon Road, with routing to prevent HGVs travelling through Stanstead Abbotts except for local deliveries.
- Lorries would not be permitted to go through the villages of Stanstead Abbotts or Hunsdon (unless to meet a local delivery). The proposed site access would be designed to make it physically impossible for vehicles to turn right, and will benefit from CCTV to ensure site management can effectively self-police HGV activity to and from the site.
