In recent months Faringdon Council has faced numerous questions from local people wanting to know about the plans of "local stakeholders" who sit on the Steering Group to turn Wicklesham quarry into an industrial warehousing (B2/ B8) site, by including it in the Neighbourhood Plan. The FAQ sheet the Council has compiled is as economical with the truth as the Neighbourhood Plan itself. It fails to tell local people: - * about the surveys of the quarry's ponds, rare plants and protected wildlife; * that the quarry is a designated Conservation Target Area in Oxfordshire's Biodiversity Action Plan; * of the restoration plan passed by Oxfordshire County Council in 2013, but still not carried out; * that the quarry has been repeatedly judged by independent reviews to be unsuitable for industrial use, "far in excess" of Faringdon's needs, and the least sustainable of all ten sites examined by the FNP's Sustainability Appraisal; * that restoration of mineral workings is a core policy of the National Planning Policy Framework. To a question it appears to have invented: "Who would protect the land if it was not in the plan?" Faringdon Council responds: "This is private property and it would be up to the landowner". The Council is evidently trying to create the impression that the site will only be protected if included in the Neighbourhood Plan! The FAQs acknowledge that Wicklesham Quarry is a geological SSSI, but advise anyone who wants "in-depth information" to contact the Town Clerk for a private chat, or to read the Neighbourhood Plan "to ascertain the facts"! What, we wonder, is this "in-depth information" that Faringdon Council is afraid to put on its website? We suspect it may be the same stuff that "local stakeholders" have been peddling for the past six years - that the quarry is a "hole in ground", "ecologically barren", and "a prime development site". Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan avoids giving any "facts" about the rarity and historical and environmental importance of Wicklesham Quarry's geo- and biodiversity, its habitat conservation status, or the statutory duty to restore the land in line with national policies. It is clear that the landowner would stand no chance of obtaining planning permission for industrial use of Wicklesham Quarry if he made an application by himself- which is why he has not done so. Instead Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan has become a political vehicle for "local stakeholders" involved with the quarry, and seeking a passport through the planning system. Local people who wish to read the full text of the petition to PROTECT WICKLESHAM QUARRY FROM DEVELOPMENT can now do so in Faringdon Library, where a poster will be on display for the next 2 to 3 weeks, together with a hard copy of the petition for people to sign. Anyone with any questions, or who wants further information or evidence about anything stated in the petition can e-mail: protectwicklesham@gmail.com, or leave a note addressed to Anna Hoare in the library. Any questions and answers will be posted in an online update on the petition for everyone to read. If you have friends, family or neighbours in the Faringdon area who are not online, please let them know that they can see the poster in Faringdon library for the next 2-3 weeks, and sign a hard copy of the petition if they wish to support it.