The BBC headline this morning says "Local communities offered more say on wind farms". Let's change some of the words and see how it reads instead:
Local communities are to be given more powers to block [quarries], but also offered greater incentives to accept them, the government says.
Planning guidance in England will be changed to ensure local opposition can override national [mineral] targets.
But the measures will see a five-fold rise in the benefits paid by developers to communities hosting [quarries].
The subsidies - worth about £100,000 a year from a medium-sized [quarry] - could be used to [support a wide range of local projects]...
The government said the measures would ensure local communities had a greater stake in the planning process.
It said it expected the [mineral] industry to improve its community benefit packages by the end of the year...
[A government minister] said: "It is important that [quarries are] developed in a way that is truly sustainable - economically, environmentally and socially - and today's announcement will ensure that communities see the windfall from hosting developments near to them, not just the [minerals industry]".
The Department for Communities and Local Government will make sure local people have more say in the planning of [quarries] and that the need for [minerals] does not automatically override the planning concerns of communities.
"We want to give local communities a greater say on planning, to give greater weight to the protection of landscape, heritage and local amenity," said Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.
Planning approvals for [quarries] in England have dropped in recent years, a situation the government is keen to turn around...
A Conservative source said the prime minister felt it was important to take local people into account so that if they did not want [quarries] they could stop them...
Could that ever happen? The Mineral Products Association, lobbying hard for the minerals industry, might have something to say first.
