As electors prepare to vote in the referendum on Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan on 24th November, strenuous efforts have been made to influence the vote in the face of evident fears that public interest in, and discussion of, the policy to turn Wicklesham Quarry into an industrial warehousing site could jeopardise the Neighbourhood Plan's future. A Faringdon Councillor has openly promoted a new website set up by the landowner of Wicklesham Quarry to coincide with the referendum. On this website the landowner claims that “the ponds have for the most part dried up”; that subsoil and topsoil “will entirely cover the quarry floor”, as “a statutory requirement of the restoration to agriculture”; and that any plant seeds contained in the original topsoil bunds “have long since died”. He maintains that “in line with planning conditions” the quarry is now being restored to agricultural use. The same Councillor publicized a poster on Facebook attributed to the ‘Neighbourhood Plan Publicity Group’ urging people to vote ‘Yes’. Since the Council is required to remain neutral during the referendum period, she was questioned about the origins of this poster, who paid for it, and whether this group included Steering Group members – all of which she declined to answer. Next, a post by a self-proclaimed “Independent Local Group” wanting to give “more information” about the Neighbourhood Plan appeared on the Facebook page ‘I live in the town of Faringdon’. Yet again this posts was linked to the Quarry owner’s website. This “independent local group” proved to be London-based media and PR consultants, Snapdragon Consulting. Most recently, the claim has been made that restoring the quarry would involve “filling in the hole” with “an enormous amount of something to trucked in”, which would “cover up the crested newt habitats and restrict access to the fossils”. This is precisely what Faringdon Councillors were saying, and perhaps believed, back in 2014, when local people questioned the validity of this policy in the Neighbourhood Plan! So it seems that this myth is being recycled once again in an attempt to mislead the public. These transparent efforts to promote private financial interests through the Neighbourhood Plan, and by means of a public campaign involving councillors in the run-up to the referendum, have met a negative response from many Faringdon residents. Many people have spoken on Facebook of feeling pressurised to vote ‘Yes’, amid claims that the town will lose money from developers; have “no control” over its future unless the Neighbourhood Plan is passed; and that the Vale District Council and Oxfordshire County Council “will be able to do what they like with Faringdon”. This bizarre, negative attitude towards local authorities has been strongly in evidence since the Vale rejected the landowner’s plan for Wicklesham Quarry back in 2009. Since then the involvement of the Quarry owner’s family and land agent in the business of Faringdon Council has correspondingly grown, and they frequently promote their private interests by describing them as “what Faringdon wants”. What is clear to anyone watching this process and looking at its history is that it has become impossible to distinguish between public and private interests either in the Neighbourhood Plan or in Faringdon Council itself. As supporters of the Campaign to Protect Wicklesham Quarry already know, claims that the quarry has no importance for biodiversity are plainly wrong, and statutory consultees have criticized the Plan for its lack of biodiversity and landscape policies- pointing out that Wicklesham Quarry is part of West Oxfordshire Heights Conservation Target Area. The County Council’s report (details of which were made public last month) stated that effectively no restoration had been carried out by the deadline of 30th September: buildings were still standing in the quarry; soil bunds to be replaced in the base were now lined with trees and no effort had been made to recover them for use; and that damage had been caused to the pond habitats. These issues are currently being followed up with the County Council.