In 2017 local people raised £14,825 to take our campaign to Protect Wicklesham Quarry from Development to the High Court. We oppose the landowner's plan to turn it into a site for heavy industry with the support of Faringdon Council's Neighbourhood Plan. The quarry is a Conservation Target Area for biodiversity and one of the oldest Sites of Special Scientific Interest for geology in the country, first listed in 1950. Since 2014 we have fought to have the quarry restored in accordance with its planning conditions.

The judge agreed that the policy was in 'manifest conflict' with the strategic policies of the Local Plan, and that Faringdon Council was wrong to describe it as a 'brownfield site', and he stated that the quarry must be restored to agricultural use. In spite of ruling that the neighbourhood plan failed to meet the 'basic conditions' he did not order the neighbourhood plan to be quashed or the policy removed. This has left the quarry in limbo with no certainty as to its long-term future protection. Wicklesham Quarry needs your help!

In September 2021 placards appeared offering the quarry for sale as a 'development opportunity'. We believe there is no justification for this claim: it is designated agricultural land and has nationally protected status as a SSSI. We strongly oppose any change of use that would create permanent structures or concrete over the quarry base. Wicklesham Quarry is the only known site where the unique Faringdon Sponge Gravels can be studied - and there are still many unanswered questions about its wealth of fossils, and the unique conditions that occurred here. Please sign the petition and help us to spread the word to local friends and colleagues. Local support for Wicklesham Quarry SSSI continues to grow.

Since 2023 we have been opposing a planning application for a major industrial/commercial development on the site. Natural England has confirmed that, if the site is built on, almost the whole site will be de-listed. Both the Geological Society and the Palaeontological Association have objected to this proposal.

Below is the main text of the petition, launched in 2015, with further detailed information and background. 

Wicklesham Quarry SSSI lies outside the market town of Faringdon, in the western Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, in an area of high landscape value, the Midvale Ridge. It is outside the town's development boundary. Planning conditions state it must be restored to agriculture, in accordance with the surrounding countryside. Its Restoration and Aftercare were eventually completed in 2024. However, it is safeguarded in Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan for use for heavy industry and warehousing (B2/B8).

Natural England calls it “one of Britain’s richest palaeontological localities”. It is an internationally famous geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Conservation Review Series Site with a "very rich and unusual assemblage" of over 150 species of fossils, including rare sponges, many of which are known to occur only at Faringdon.*  It also has fossil reptiles - turtles, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and crocodiles. It is a "type site"- which means Faringdon has given its name to unique aspects of Wicklesham's geology: Faringdon fossils, Faringdon Greensands, and the Faringdon Sponge Gravels. 

Wicklesham's unique geology is the key to Faringdon's landscape setting and coral limestone architecture, mid-way between the chalk downs of the Ridgeway and the Upper Thames. The beautiful former quarry is central to the history and identity of Faringdon. The earliest collection of 'Faringdon fossils' in 1699 - before anyone knew what fossils were - was sponsored by Sir Isaac Newton himself! They formed part of the first Catalogue of English Fossils by Edward Lhwyd, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. 

Wicklesham Quarry is a landmark in the history of science, and an irreplaceable part of our national heritage.

Local people have fought to have the Restoration and Aftercare Schemes carried out since 2014, many years after quarrying had finished.  Enforcement action was taken in 2016 when Grundon Ltd again failed to comply with planning conditions.** Restoration involved recreating a fertile soil bed in the quarry base using the original topsoil, and preserving the fossil-rich walls and naturalised plant and wildlife. The quarry's naturalised ponds had breeding colonies of toads, smooth and palmate newts, and Great Crested Newts, a European Protected Species. Wicklesham tetrad also has eleven plant species listed as ‘rare’.# (One of Wicklesham Quarry's ponds is shown above, taken by the Monitoring Officer in May 2016.)

Wicklesham Quarry is part of West Oxfordshire Heights Conservation Target Area (CTA). CTAs are the key focus of Biodiversity Action Plans for restoring Priority Habitats and Species and creating ecological networks, in order to meet the UK's targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre (TVERC) Biodiversity Report for Wicklesham Quarry records over 30 Priority Species, as well as 18 DEFRA Red List bird species. Many are dependent on the aquifer that regularly floods the quarry. These 'aquifer-fed fluctuating water bodies' are a Priority Habitat.

The quarry lies beneath the viewing point of Galley Hill (where the aquifer rises), at the centre of a network of well-used local footpaths and bridleways connecting Faringdon to the villages of Fernham and Little Coxwell, and the Iron Age fort of Ringdale. This landscape is an extremely important amenity to local people - a pristine area of the Midvale Ridge, with spectacular views across the Vale. 

 In 2016 the Vale of White Horse District Council once again refused to include Wicklesham Quarry in the 2031 Local Plan for industrial use, supporting four independent reviews that found turning Wicklesham into an industrial site was unjustified and /or unsustainable (URS Ltd 2008 & 2013; VWH District Council Preferred Options Report 2009; Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan Sustainability Appraisal 2014). 

Faringdon Town Council has rejected every independent assessment, even the one it commissioned itself, and the Neighbourhood Plan safeguards Wicklesham Quarry SSSI as B2- B8 ‘employment land’. 

Supporters of the campaign to Protect Wicklesham Quarry from Development  challenged Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan’s evidence provided by local developers - the landowners themselves - on the grounds that it is inaccurate and misleading. The High Court ruled that the Neighbourhood Plan failed to meet the 'basic conditions'. This means that the Development Plan now contains a neighbourhood plan that is in conflict with the Local Plan. The Vale of White Horse District Council- who ignored our objections and adopted it while we were waiting for the Judicial Review to be heard- has failed to resolve this conflict. Please get in touch with any questions or comments by email to: protectwicklesham@gmail.com.

* Natural England's listing for Wicklesham and Coxwell Pits SSSI can be found here. Wicklesham Quarry is over 29 acres of the total 31.59 acre SSSI.    www.ecoweek.info/Find_Out_More-/SSSIs/Wicklesham_-_Coxwell_Pits_SSSI.pdf

 ** In December 2016 Oxfordshire County Council served Grundon Ltd with a Breach of Conditions Notice for failing to carry out the Restoration Scheme, and set a new deadline of 30th June 2017. The County Council and Natural England have acknowledged that Grundon failed to obtain a Mitigation Licence before the 2016 deadline and Oxfordshire County Council has photographed substantial damage to one of the ponds, which are a Priority Habitat. Damage to both ponds was carried out in 2016 before any 'restoration' had been started, under the radar of Natural England. Oxfordshire County Council has since denied this destruction took place, and blocked a police investigation into wildlife crime that we reported. By October 2016 the beautiful pond shown above was unrecognizable and had been filled in. To read updates to the story of this campaign, including photographs, please scroll down the page. (Since 2019 the quarry has undergone 5 years agricultural aftercare. The planning conditions were lifted in July 2024.)

# Wicklesham tetrad (2km X 2km) was surveyed in 2000 by the Ashmolean Museum Natural History Society, Rare Plants Group, for C. D. Preston, D. A. Pearman & T. D. Dines, eds. (2002): New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Supported by DEFRA)