The Judicial Review of Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan will take place on 14th and 15th June 2017 in the High Court. For Wicklesham Quarry and other important sites of geo and biodiversity, a great deal is at stake. Our case raises many issues that so far have not been tested by the courts. The profits of development can be a strong incentive to try to set aside planning conditions or push though the development of unsuitable sites. Unlike Local Plans, Neighbourhood Plans offer an opportunity for developers to draft policies from which they stand to benefit, and such policies are not required to meet the test of 'soundness'. If District Councils who are responsible for strategic policies adopt a hands-off approach to Neighbourhood Plans, the result can be a Local Plan that contains conflicting policies. This is what happened when the Vale of White Horse District Council adopted Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan. This situation undermines equality in planning decisions, and threatens the balancing act of making appropriate land allocations, while protecting landscape and the environment from harm. In the case of Wicklesham Quarry the planning system should ensure very high levels of protection: * it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest of international importance; * it lies outside the urban settlement of Faringdon in open countryside, in the National Character Area of the Midvale Ridge; * it hosts UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP) Habitat and European Protected Species; * it forms part of West Oxfordshire Heights Conservation Target Area, an ecological network of habitats and species identified for protection and restoration under Oxfordshire's Biodiversity Action Plan. * It has planning conditions that require its restoration to agricultural use, in accordance with its surroundings. For all these reasons, it is the very last place a responsible local authority would choose to put an industrial estate! For eight years the District Council has rejected persistent attempts to have the site included in the Local Plan, but by adopting Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan, there is now an expectation that the Council will grant planning permission. Wicklesham Quarry is now a test case for the Localism Act. - Can a Neighbourhood Plan ignore strategic policies and seek to plough its own furrow in opposition to the District Council? - Can the conservation of nationally designated site be down-graded to serve opportunist ambitions for further profit? - Can a Neighbourhood Plan run counter to national policies for the environmental restoration of mineral workings? - Are warehouses more important than valued landscape, geodiversity, and protected habitats and species? Supporters of the Campaign to Protect Wicklesham Quarry answer a resounding "NO" to all these questions. We shall soon have an answer from the High Court. You are invited to attend the court case in June in solidarity with Wicklesham Quarry. The fund-raising campaign through CrowdJustice will be renewed in May in the lead-up to the case, and further news of our fund-raising dinner and auction will be sent to supporters in the coming weeks. Wicklesham Community Fund welcomes donations, which will be refunded to donors if costs are awarded. Please contact protectwicklesham@gmail.com for more information. Thank you for your support!