Leading environmentalist Jonathon Porritt has given his backing to the campaign to PROTECT WICKLESHAM QUARRY FROM DEVELOPMENT. He states: 'Our countryside faces death by a thousand cuts,and protecting special places like Wicklesham becomes a more and more important priority for all those who care about the environment.' Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan seeks to give the landowner a shortcut through the planning system in order to turn Wicklesham Quarry into an industrial/ warehousing site. This site has been put forward for industrial development since 2008 and repeatedly rejected by independent Land Reviews and by the Vale itself. In the Neighbourhood Plan's own Sustainability Appraisal it came out bottom (i.e least sustainable) of ten possible employment sites. Why then is it still included in the Neighbourhood Plan? Could it have anything to do with the 'local stakeholders' who sit on the FNP Steering Group and declare financial interests in the quarry by any chance? Having thrown out the findings of independent consultants, the same local landowners and agents have produced their own 'evidence base' to try to justify their long-standing plan for Wicklesham. Local objectors are currently challenging the competence and veracity of the data on which the Neighbourhood Plan is based, and accuse Faringdon Town Council of allowing local landowner/developers to write the town's policies. Anna Hoare