Unbelievably, another public consultation on Wicklesham Quarry SSSI has been pulled - this time by Oxfordshire County Council. The Council claims it was a ‘mistake’, and that the application for a ‘screening opinion’ was not supposed to involve public consultation. This is part of the email sent to me by Principal Planning Officer, Mary Hudson:
“The confusion was caused by an inexperienced member of the planning support team, who sent out the template letter referring to a Scoping Opinion and mistakenly allowed comments to be submitted over the website, despite the fact that we are not consulting on anything and have not received a request for a Scoping Opinion. They have now sent the correct letter to the District Council.”
Local people have expressed anger and disbelief that a planning consultation has been scrapped for the second time in six months, along with the views they had already submitted.
Environmental Impact Assessment
The application was for an opinion on whether an Environmental Impact Assessment is needed, and the County Council decided it was not - without asking US. An Environmental Impact Assessment would involve members of the public giving evidence based on their own knowledge, and that, it seems, is to be prevented at all costs. We believe that an EIA should be carried out for the following reasons:
This is a Schedule 2 development*
- for an industrial development (B2/B8) far in excess of 0 .5 ha
- including multi storey car parks,
- in an area where such development does not accord with the Development Plan: an unallocated site in open countryside, on agricultural land;
- It is an area of significant environmental value: a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Conservation Target Area, with Priority Habitat and a European Protected Species - all of which are likely to be significantly harmed by the proposed development.
*Town & Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017
Suggestions for supporters
1) Email OCC Principal Planning Officer, Mary Hudson, and Vale D.C. Head of Planning, Adrian Duffield and say you wish to be notified straight away of any planning application submitted in relation to Wicklesham Quarry. mary.hudson@oxfordshire.gov.uk adrian.duffield@southandvale.gov.uk
2) Get ready to respond to another full planning application. In the next week or two I shall post some points you may want to include along with your own, as well as some that are less obvious, but the key thing is to get YOUR views heard, once we are finally allowed to take part in a planning process that is intended to include the public. I expect an application to be made a few weeks before Christmas- when they think we'll be too busy to notice or respond. Don't get caught out!
3) You might also wish to contact the Leader of Oxfordshire County Council, Liz Leffman, and ask why Planning Officers are not requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment for such a huge industrial infrastructure proposal, including multi-storey car parks and a data centre, on a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which is part of a Conservation Target Area, with Priority Habitat and a European Protected Species – which is also an unallocated site in conflict with the Local Plan, as ruled by the High Court.* liz.leffman@oxfordshire.gov.uk
* “Neither the examiner nor the District Council were lawfully satisfied that the FNP satisfied the basic condition that the making of the plan was in general conformity with the strategic policies contained in the development plan”.
4) Send links to updates to friends and contacts across Faringdon and the Vale, post them on social media, and encourage people to sign the petition. A huge industrial infrastructure project at Wicklesham Quarry will destroy our unique SSSI, its biodiversity, and the protected landscape of the Mid-Vale Ridge. It is also part of a plan to DOUBLE the size of Faringdon, south of the A420, as the map of the Vale's 'Call for land', shown above, has revealed.
STOP IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
Please get in touch by email: protectwicklesham@gmail.com