Decision

Councillor Brazil MOVED and Councillor Arnott SECONDED that the Cabinet’s advice be accepted and that the response to the motion be as follows.

‘that Council be recommended to note that the impacts of dust on human health and as a nuisance are adequately addressed through the established, proportionate and evidence-based statutory planning process and regulatory framework’.

The amendment in the name of Councillor Brazil was then put to the vote and declared CARRIED.

It was then MOVED by Councillor Hill and SECONDED by Councillor Game that the motion be amended as follows (additional wording in red and crossed out words with a strikethrough):

‘that Council be recommended to note that the impacts of dust on human health and as a nuisance are adequately addressed through the established, proportionate and evidence-based statutory planning process and regulatory framework’. That Council notes the existing statutory planning and regulatory framework and, to demonstrate that the health risks from hazardous airborne particulates are adequately addressed, Council resolves to:

(a) establish which statutory body is responsible for protecting residents outside mineral extraction sites from long-term exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS), including responsibility for monitoring residential exposure.

(b) establish what monitoring of RCS at residential locations near mineral extraction sites in Devon is currently undertaken, by whom, and whether the results are publicly available.

(c) consider the Council's obligations and potential legal exposure under the Human Rights Act 1998, including Articles 2, 3 and 8, where it knows, or ought reasonably to know, of potentially hazardous environmental exposure affecting residents.

Council recognises that public reassurance must be based on evidence, and that absence of evidence of harm is not evidence of absence of exposure.

The amendment in the name of Councillor Hill was then put to the vote and declared CARRIED and subsequently thereafter also CARRIED as the substantive motion.