The Aggregates Levy is a tax on primary sand, gravel and crushed rock, and is designed to recognise the significant environmental impact of aggregates extraction, encourage the use of alternative materials and channel some of the proceeds into a sustainability award as a result quarry operators must pay a tax of £1.60per tonne of sand gravel or rock.

The CFI dismissed the BAA’s first legal challenge against the tax in September 2006.
This judgement would appear to represent a significant shift in policy by moving it away from previous legal precedent set by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s highest court. According to previous case law, environmental concerns could not justify a difference in treatment between different sectors that had the same environmental impact.

The BAA believes that not only has the Levy failed to provide any tangible environmental gain but also, it has produced its own environmental problems. Levy exempt products are now being hauled longer distances and displacing locally sourced materials. This has greatly hampered the quarry industry’s ability to deal with its own by-products and there are now growing mountains of secondary aggregates appearing in quarries across the country.

British Aggregates Association director Robert Durward said:

“Whatever their reason, the fact remains that the CFI decision is fundamentally at odds with the ECJ on a number of counts. In addition, not content with accepting the UK Government and EU Commission’s “rationale” for the levy, the CFI added their own interpretation of how it worked to offer environmental benefit. However the CFI were no more successful than either the UK treasury or the EU in trying to explain a levy, which has so manifestly failed to deliver any tangible environmental benefit.