Further Varied Permit Issued to Allen Newport Limited

Following submission of a planning application by PDE Consulting Limited (PDE), on 20 December 2023 Suffolk County Council (SCC) issued planning permission for a western extension to Cavenham Quarry for the extraction, processing, sale and distribution of sand and gravel and subsequent restoration using inert materials on land at Cavenham Quarry.

Following the receipt of pre-application advice, on 03 May 2024 PDE submitted an application to the Environment Agency (EA) on behalf of Allen Newport Limited, to vary their environmental permit to add mining waste lagoons and two new discharge locations for quarry dewatering, consistent with the planning permission. The new discharge locations had been agreed with the EA and Natural England as part of the planning application process. The dewatering permits (abstraction licences) which relate to the discharge points were issued earlier in the year by a separate department at the EA.

The application was not allocated to an EA officer for determination until 02 December 2025 and it was subsequently duly made on 21 January 2026.

The application was poorly handled by the EA from start to finish, however a permit variation was finally issued on 23 October 2026. The total determination period for this relatively simple application was 30 months.

Since the abstraction and discharge permit applications were submitted for Cavenham Quarry, the EA has launched a team to manage dewatering permissions, which according to them will provide a ‘better customer experience’. Applications for water abstractions and water discharge permits will be determined by one central team. We do not know as yet if this process is actually proving to be more efficient. However, it is understood that the Minerals Products Association (MPA) recently facilitated a site visit for the dewatering team to visit an active quarry to help them understand the processes to be permitted by their team.