In what must be a worrying development for Faringdon Council, the Independent Examiner for Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan has stood down, declaring himself unable to carry out the examination. This comes several weeks after all the submissions on the Neighbourhood Plan had been sent to him. In 2014 the same Independent Examiner declared himself satisfied with the Neighbourhood Plan, except with regard to justifying the designation of 'green spaces' in the town. On that occasion local people failed to submit objections to the Vale Council, in the belief that all our earlier submissions would be forwarded to them. This did not happen. (A notice on the council website read that the public consultation was closed.) As a result, the Independent Examiner may have been lulled into a false sense of security, and he clearly failed to recognize the numerous problems with the town council's policy to turn Wicklesham Quarry SSSI and Conservation Target Area into a 20 acre industrial/ logistics site. This time he received petitions with over 600 signatures, a 62 page submission and folder of documentary evidence, detailing the Neighbourhood Plan's critical omissions of key evidence, incorrect statements, misuse of census data, false statistical claims, failure to publish documents, flawed assumptions, and dozens of demonstrations of how the policy for Wicklesham Quarry is not in conformity with the Local Plan, Minerals and Waste Policy, and the National Planning Policy Framework, and breaches the Basic Conditions in these and other respects. The Vale of White Horse District Council has not explained why he stood down, but acknowledges that 'another Independent Examiner will have to be appointed.'