The Wicklesham community includes sixteen people and six separate households who live yards from the quarry next to the Vale Way, but the planning application by developer Geoffrey Spencer Cooper of Eaton Hastings House completely denies their existence.  They are invisible in the applicant's drawing above: their houses have been deleted. Wicklesham residents say they are “enraged by the dishonesty of this planning application”. A resident states “The application does not even admit we exist, and none of the impacts of the development even mention us, our houses, or how we would be affected.”

"THEY HAVE ACTUALLY DELETED OUR HOUSES IN ORDER TO DENY OUR EXISTENCE!"

The application documents claim there is only one residence at Wicklesham, that of the landowner himself at Wicklesham Lodge Farmhouse (which is shown above). The resident states: “It is the only dwelling that has been mentioned in assessments of the potential impacts of the development.  Do they intend to demolish our houses? If so, no one has told us.”

'Farm buildings' or 'sheds'

The Wicklesham houses, most of which are owned by the residents themselves, appear to be described as ‘farm buildings’ or ‘sheds’ in some of the application documents, and in the applicant’s drawing above the houses have actually been eliminated completely (Revised Design Code Part 2 (5) P.21 ‘Indicative Massing’).  The houses SHOULD be shown south of the quarry, next to the footpath.

The applicant's 'Landscape Effects on the Site and Immediate Surroundings' also refers only to: 'Wicklesham Lodge Farm which includes a number of small businesses together with a residential property (owned by the applicant) is separated from the site by trees and vegetation.' (P.21) (Revised Landscape and Visual Appraisal)

Since the planning application is required to describe the views and impacts of the development on neighbouring properties, this looks like plain, fraudulent deception.

In some drawings ‘Wicklesham Lodge Farmhouse’ is labelled- although it is considerably further away from the quarry than the Wicklesham community. (It is included above.) Because the Wicklesham houses appear tiny on the base map itself it seems the applicant's intention is to suggest they are simply outbuildings of the farmhouse, and to deny the existence of the residential community.

"NO ONE WOULD WANT TO LIVE HERE AGAIN"

The resident has written to Oxfordshire County Council:

“Our lives would be turned upside down by this horrendous industrial development. It would destroy the place we live in and the reason we came here, and I believe I could not continue to bring up my children here. Our quality of life, the destruction of the rural environment, the visual impacts of the development- just a few yards from our doors (less than the width of a road), the impacts of noise, air pollution, light pollution, hundreds of vehicles etc., would all be be majorly traumatic to us all. The place we live as it is now- the peace and quiet, wildlife, biodiversity, safety for children, good for physical & mental health, etc. are all important facts as to why we moved here in the first place, and they will be desecrated by this development.”

“We have never been notified by the applicant of his intentions, let alone consulted, and by the horrific impacts such a development would have in what we believed was a safe, healthy, peaceful and beautiful rural area. I do not believe it would even be possible for those of who own our houses here to sell them, as no one would want to live here again.” 

The resident, who states the Wicklesham families have been “disgracefully treated and even our existence denied” objects that:

“The quarry and the whole area of Wicklesham are outside the town of Faringdon in an area that is supposed to be protected from urban development- the Midvale Ridge. It is also part of West Oxfordshire Heights Conservation Target Area, and is important for biodiversity.

I do not believe Faringdon neighbourhood plan has the right to overturn the policies of the Local Plan which protect this area for local people, nature, and the environment.

The quarry has been returned to farmland. The applicants constantly pretend that it is or was a brownfield site, but that is not true. It has planning conditions to restore it to the same use as the surrounding land, to prevent it being permanently damaged by quarrying. Surely that was the purpose of the planning conditions?

I do not understand why this site should be regarded differently from any other farmland on the Midvale Ridge.” 

Please get in touch with any comments or queries: protectwicklesham@gmail.com