For the last 2 days of Wicklesham Quarry's stage one CrowdJustice Appeal, let's see if we can give a final boost to the Appeal total, and make it to £11,000! https://www.crowdjustice.org/case/sssi-and-conservationtarget-area My Application for Judicial Review of Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan will now go ahead. I want to thank Wicklesham supporters for enabling this important case to go forward, and pay a special tribute to my lawyers, Pavlos Eleftheriadis of FTB Chambers, and Linda Felton of Fortune Green Legal Practice. Because of their personal generosity and commitment to environmental justice, the preparation of the case to Protect Wicklesham Quarry from Development, up to and including the Letter of Intent, has been carried out pro bono. I cannot thank them enough! Many critical environmental issues are at stake in Wicklesham Quarry: the legal protection of a nationally designated site; the role of Biodiversity Action Plans in the planning system; whether planning conditions for quarry restoration have any legal force once quarrying is finished; and whether a neighbourhood plan can override policies for valued landscape, Priority Habitats and Protected Species. The Convention on Biological Diversity is the first global commitment to halt and reverse the relentless decline of habitats and species. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) was formed to meet that commitment nationally, and Wicklesham Quarry forms part of one of Oxfordshire BAP's Conservation Target Areas, where targeted protection has the greatest environmental benefits. In 2015, scientists warned that "British wildlife is at its most perilous state ever recorded in the past 40 years"*. If developers continually chip away at our most vulnerable and important sites, and undermine the policies that are supposed to protect them, further loss of geo and biodiversity is inevitable. Today it is Wicklesham Quarry. Tomorrow and the day after it will be other unique and irreplaceable sites. Only with continual public pressure - and if necessary - judicial support, will planning authorities finally take the message home that environmental responsibility must be at the heart of their decision making. *Paulette Burns Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, NERC. 8.12.15 https://www.crowdjustice.org/case/sssi-and-conservationtarget-area