Green Party to challenge new East Anglian aggregates dredging
The Green Party in the UK is to challenge proposed aggregates dredging off the East Anglian coast. Councillor Rupert Read of Norwich, the Green Party lead candidate for Eastern Region in the 2009 Euro-elections, has announced that the Green Party will be challenging the new aggregate dredging licences being sought by the Anglian Offshore Dredging Association (AODA), which consists of Cemex UK Marine, Hanson Aggregates Marine, United Marine Dredging, Volker Dredging Ltd and Sea Aggregates Ltd.
The new licences involve a large extension to Area 495B, which lies east of the existing dredging area located offshore between Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and a new area, Area 496, which is some 10 times the area already being dredged at the existing site off Southwold. Area 496 is located to the west of the existing dredging ground, and is less than half the distance from the shoreline as the existing dredge site.
In a press release dated 24 September the Green Party said, ‘In Holland, the world experts on coastline protection have a ban on dredging for aggregates closer than 25km to the shore. Yet here in England, we allow dredging to take place way closer than that. If this application is granted, it will be criminally irresponsible, at a time when manmade climate change is threatening in any case to raise sea levels and is already worsening winter storms.’
