MPs want answers from Lagoon boss
MEMBERS of Parliament are seeking “urgent clarification” from a leading figure behind the proposed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon who last week denied that one of his companies offered “financial inducement” so a parish council would support planning permission for a controversial quarry project in Cornwall.
Mark Shorrock, the chief executive of Tidal Lagoon Power, told MPs last week how he had “bought a quarry” because he did not want to be “hidebound to large quarries in Norway” for deliveries of rock.
Mr Shorrock is listed as a person with “significant control” over Shire Oak Quarries Ltd and when asked if there was “any truth in the allegation” that his company had offered a “financial inducement to the parish council” he said “No”.
The Western Mail has seen a draft agreement between Shire Oak Quarries and St Keverne Parish Council which suggested the company would create a “community benefit fund”.
The agreement would have committed Shire Oak to “pay the parish council the community fund on each anniversary of the implementation date”.
It details how the parish council would have been expected to “give reasonable support to the application for planning permission” and “not make representations against” the application.
It is understood parish councillors refused to sign the agreement.
Conservative Monmouth MP David Davies, who chairs the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and Labour’s Rachel Reeves, the chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee now want facts clarified.
Mr Davies said: “Following an evidence session into the tidal lagoons last week, a parish council contacted me in respect to evidence that I heard
from one of the witnesses and following receipt of that letter and other paperwork I and the other chairman, Rachel Reeves, have written to the witness seeking urgent clarification of the evidence that we were given. I have received nothing back yet and therefore am not willing to comment any further.”
Dean Quarry contains “high density gabbro” – a rock described by Shire Oak Quarries on its website as “an ideal type of rock for the tidal lagoon, which will require five million tonnes of rock to complete its construction”.
Keith Clarke, the chairman of the company behind the Swansea lagoon project, has written to the two MPs to stress that it has “no interest” in Cornwall’s Dean Quarry and that it did “not fulfil our criteria for volume and logistics that would qualify it as a suitable supplier”.
He stated: “Firstly, there is no interest from the company itself in Dean Quarry or indeed any other quarry in the UK or abroad.
“As a board, we have already put in place measures to ensure Mark Shorrock’s position in Dean Quarry is isolated from any commercial, environmental or programme decisions relating to overall rock supply...
“Separately, you should be aware that we have committed as a board to a minimum 50% Wales supply chain and an additional minimum 15% wider UK supply chain for the project.
“We do not believe there will be any scenarios where rock from Dean Quarry in Cornwall will be required as a means of achieving that minimum 15% target...
“Lastly, we are aware that although Dean Quarry has an existing planning permission, it does not fulfil our criteria for volume and logistics that would qualify it as a suitable supplier. We are also aware that Dean Quarry would require significant investment and additional permits in order to be able to potentially meet our criteria...
“Let me assure you that Dean Quarry is not an integral part of our project, is not integral to achieving our target for UK content, and is not integral to securing the many wider economic benefits we believe Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon offers. Dean Quarry is a separate investment by Shire Oak as a separate company.”
In a separate statement, Mr Clarke said he trusted there was now “complete clarity on a matter the board considers has distracted unnecessarily from a project of vital importance to the UK’s future portfolio of homegrown, reliable, low carbon, low cost power”.
The Shire Oak Quarries website states that it will “not be shipping rock to the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant at Swansea Bay unless it is contracted to do so by the marine works contractor selected by Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay Plc to build the lagoon wall”.
Tidal Lagoon Power set out the relationship between the two companies on its website: “Shire Oak Energy, which is a shareholder in Tidal Lagoon Plc, has purchased Dean Quarry near St Keverne, Cornwall, from Cemex UK with a view to reopening the quarry to offer marine contractors working on UK tidal lagoon projects the option of a local source of rock suitable for building breakwaters. It formed a quarry company, Shire Oak Quarries, to make the purchase.
“Dean Quarry has planning permission in place until 2035 to win 6.3m tonnes of gabbro.”
During his evidence session before the committees chaired by Mr Davies and Ms Reeves, Mr Shorrock was asked if he had a “conflict of interest”.
Eddisbury Conservative MP Antoinette Sandbach asked: “In terms of your investment in the Dean Quarry, it appears that it is assumed that the Dean Quarry investment will lead to [a] company you control supplying the rock to Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. Do you feel that there is a conflict of interest there, that you personally would stand to gain a lot of money from this project in terms of your quarrying interests as well as your director interests on Swansea Bay tidal lagoon?”
Mr Shorrock said: “Dean Quarry is a separate company. It is going to be owned by an environmental foundation and it will have the right to bid to tenderers of Swansea Bay tidal lagoon for the rock.
“It was bought as a strategic idea because the big dredging fraternity said, ‘You do not want to be hidebound to large quarries in Norway for such a large quantity of rock’.
“For better or for worse, Ms Sandbach, I bought a quarry; I am not in the quarrying business.”
Monmouth MP Mr Davies asked: “Is there any truth in the allegation that you offered the parish council – or that your company offered – a financial inducement to the parish council?
Mr Shorrock said: “No.”
Mr Davies pressed again, saying: “You are on the record now as saying no to that.”
Mr Shorrock confirmed: “I have just said no.”
Opposition to renewed quarrying has been organised by the group Cornwall Against Dean Super Quarry.
There is particular concern about Shire Oak Quarries’ plans to “take all rock out by sea”.
Derek Thomas, the Conservative MP for St Ives described local anxieties, saying: “Lots and lots of people are employed in fairly small businesses, whether it’s fishing or diving, [tourism], and it’s quite clear to us that things like the Marine Conservation Zone have aided that economic growth. The quarry is threatening it and it’s very clear that the quarry won’t employ a lot of people from the local area.”
He said that when he was first elected in 2015 there was an assumption the quarry would supply rock for the lagoon but he worked to break the perceived link between the two projects.
He said: “At the time, in all the conversations, Dean Quarry and the Tidal Lagoon were linked. You just couldn’t get a wedge between the two.
“The absolute assumption was the tidal lagoon, if it goes ahead, would take rock from Dean... We managed to separate the two out so one wasn’t necessarily dependent on the other.”
He added: “I’ve no concern whatsoever about the principle of the tidal lagoon. But you can’t achieve one environmental benefit in any part of the country, whether it’s Swansea or somewhere else, at the expense of another part of the country...
“Honestly, there’s no reason why the tidal lagoon can’t go ahead without Dean.”
Mr Shorrock was invited to comment.