Collation of the results of the 2019 Aggregate Minerals Survey for Scotland

Aggregate Minerals (AM) surveys provide an in-depth and up-to-date understanding of national and regional sales, inter-regional flows, transportation, consumption and permitted reserves of primary aggregates. The AM Survey for Scotland aims to provide comprehensive data for monitoring and facilitating aggregates provision at local, regional and national level. The output is used mainly by Government, Planning Authorities, industry and environmental interest groups. The surveys are used to inform the development of minerals policy in respect to the production, movement and consumption of aggregates. The last Aggregate Minerals Survey for Scotland was undertaken for the base year 20121. This report is the collation of the data for primary aggregates for 2019, with the survey process occurring during 2022. The choice of gathering survey data for 2019 was deliberately made to avoid the calendar years 2020 and 2021, where quarries and their customers were operating under varying degrees of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. This approach was agreed with Mineral Products Association (MPA) and the British Aggregates Association (BAA). Choosing either of these years would have arguably distorted the results. The choice of 2019 also provided consistency with the equivalent survey in England and Wales2. In addition to presenting information on sales, consumption, and permitted reserves of primary aggregates, information is also presented on the quantity of aggregate minerals granted and refused planning permission in 2019 (Appendix A). Information was collected from aggregates producers (reserves, sales and sales by destination) and Planning Authorities (planning permissions) using standard survey forms (Appendix B). The information submitted via these forms was collated by the British Geological Survey (BGS) on behalf of the Scottish Government. The BGS (Appendix C) was commissioned in December 2021 by the Scottish Government to implement the survey and to collate and report the results. The survey was overseen by a steering group, which included representatives of the Scottish Government and the aggregates industry (Appendix D). A glossary of terms and abbreviations is provided as Appendix E. New geographical areas for collating returns were put in place for the current survey (Appendix F). These areas aim to support development planning policy while also recognising the difficulties of defining market areas in a country like Scotland with considerable variation in population density and geology. The intention is to provide the statistics necessary to inform the planning process without breaching commercial confidentiality. The unavoidable changes to the market areas used for the 2019 AM Survey for Scotland prevent direct comparison of regional information with previous surveys.