4 March 2010

MPA Highlights Need for Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund to Give Greater Benefit to Local Communities

The MPA believes that future use of the ALSF in England should be more strongly focussed on local communities and that there should be a strategic review to align the fund more with current sustainability principles together with a more coherent delivery plan.

While setting out MPA’s continuing opposition to the aggregates levy, Nigel Jackson, Chief Executive of MPA, highlighted many positive outcomes of the use of ALSF to date and emphasised that the fund should be maintained as long as the aggregates levy operated. He stressed that the MPA wants to ensure that there is genuine and lasting value from the ALSF.

Nigel Jackson raised particular concerns about the diversion of the fund from its original purposes.  ALSF allocation and spending has been significantly lower than originally planned.

Nigel Jackson set out five key MPA positions on the future of the Aggregates Levy and ALSF.

• Firstly - that the existing freeze on its indexation should be extended indefinitely and certainly until there is a proven and sustained recovery.

• Secondly - that the undoubted improvements the industry has made in its operational and environmental performance are properly evaluated and recognised by seeking to reduce the quantum of the levy itself.

• Thirdly – that the ALSF continues for as long as the levy is in place but its strategic management and delivery is reviewed to align more with the principles of sustainable development and that significantly more funding is directed to benefit local communities impacted by aggregate extraction.

• Fourthly - that the creeping migration and diversion of funds away from the original and core purposes of the fund into general exchequer is arrested and reversed.

• And finally – attribution, the industry want plaques and launch ceremonies as these help raise the profile of the industry and help make the link between the use of the fund and the industry.

ENDS