Asphalt plant given go ahead

A new £3.5 million asphalt plant is to be built on the Isle of Wight.

Wight Building Materials, which is owned by Aggregate Industries and Eurovia, has been given the green light to construct a new asphalt plant at St Georges.

The Isle of Wight Council has approved the planning application for a new asphalt plant to be built at Blackwater Quarry at St Georges. It will replace the existing asphalt plant with a new modern high performance asphalt production facility for asphalt aggregate recycling on the island.

This new modern production facility represents a capital investment of over £3.5m on the island. This is a long-term commitment to support a sustainable building material business on the Isle of Wight, which also supports the Isle of Wight Council’s Highways PFI and the future general infrastructure investment and reconstruction on the Isle of Wight..

Scott Wardrop, chief executive of Eurovia UK, said: “This allows Wight Building Materials to move forward and build a modern, low emission asphalt plant, needed by the Isle of Wight to produce high quality materials for the Island for many years to come and secures the jobs on the island. Now that planning has been secured, we hope we can still get the new production facility commissioned in the second quarter of this year to enable full support of the Isle of Wight Council’s Highways PFI and gain more reliability of asphalt supplies at St Georges.”

As a direct result of the approval Eurovia will withdraw its planning application for an asphalt plant at Medina Wharf (submitted in April 2012).