This Saturday, 9th January 2016 a submission will be available to read and sign at Little Coxwell Village Hall between 12.00 and 2.00pm (1 mile from Faringdon). If you can get along, please come and show your support. Please add your signature to protect Wicklesham Quarry! The submission will go first to the Vale of White Horse Council & then to the independent Planning Inspection of Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan. It sets out the many ways in which the Neighbourhood Plan Policy 4.5B - to turn Wicklesham Quarry into a 20 acre industrial warehousing site - FAILS TO MEET THE BASIC CONDITIONS. 2 key examples: 1) The planning conditions and Restoration & Aftercare Plan for Wicklesham Quarry are 'county matters' stemming from Minerals and Waste strategic policies, in conformity with the National Planning Policy Framework (Section 13) 'Facilitating the Sustainable Use of Minerals'. County matters are 'excluded development' for neighbourhood plans under the Localism Act- so policy 4.5B is in breach of the Localism Act. 2) Wicklesham Quarry is a Priority Habitat and habitat of European Protected Species. This means it is a 'European site', and neighbourhood plans are not permitted to do anything 'likely to have a significant effect' on a European site. These are just two examples of major breaches of the Basic Conditions a neighbourhood plan is required to meet, before it is allowed to proceed to referendum. The submission also shows that Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan Policy 4.5B is not in conformity with Local Plan Strategic Policies on landscape, development in the countryside, the Biodiversity Action Plan (Wicklesham is a Conservation Target Area), geodiversity and SSSIs, and that it signally fails to demonstrate any 'overriding public interest' to justify its policy. Four independent reviews (the latest in 2013) have judged Wicklesham Quarry to be 'far in excess' of Faringon's needs, unsuitable and unsustainable. Faringdon council's strategy for the past 3 years has been to refuse to acknowledge any of the facts- even when they were pointed out by URS Ltd., the independent company engaged to undertake the Sustainability Assessment! Sadly, this neighbourhood plan is the predictable result of putting the foxes in charge of the hen-coop, by allowing local landowner-developers to sit on the Steering Group, write policies for their own land, and then invent the 'data' to justify them, regardless of all professional,independent and disinterested assessments! Together we can stop this travesty of localism- come down and lend your voice to save this unique and important site of geo and biodiversity.