This is a fight we can’t run away from! Faringdon’s landscape is under threat.

Local people from Faringdon and the Western Vale villages have come together to fight back against Oxfordshire County Council’s decision to allow a huge industrial/ commercial development – which may include a data centre – to obliterate Faringdon’s ‘scientifically priceless’ Site of Special Scientific Interest. Please visit our Just Giving page and support our fight to protect Faringdon’s landscape and national heritage.  https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/friends-wicklesham-quarry

This outrageous decision was taken by County Councillors on 19 January. It would mean almost the whole area of the SSSI would be denotified, because its ‘special interest’ would be permanently destroyed.

As well as being a SSSI Wicklesham Quarry is a Geological Conservation Review Series site, a ‘type site’ of international importance, and a ‘finite site’- which means this 29 acres is all there is of a unique ‘highly localised’ fossil deposit which is up to 50 metres deep. It is not just ‘rare’ – it is literally one of a kind.

It has been known since the earliest days of natural philosophy. Isaac Newton  sponsored field collection of these mysterious fossils for inclusion in the first Catalogue of English Fossils, published in 1699! And Charles Darwin himself led a petition to the Treasury which led to the famous ‘Faringdon fossils’ being included in our national collections, and eventually around the world.

The owners of Wicklesham Quarry have submitted plans for 2,500 houses on the Midvale Ridge National Character Area- covering the whole of Wicklesham Farm from the A420 to the edge of Fernham. If the horrific travesty of development at Wicklesham Quarry goes ahead, there is not much to stop them destroying the rest of Faringdon’s valued landscape. The proposals for housing repeatedly refer to the ‘new development’ at Wicklesham Quarry as justification.

The loss of Wicklesham Quarry will irreparably damage  the UK’s reputation for science and conservation, and  remain an indictment of Faringdon’s WORST EVER council, which is responsible for the awful situation that both the town and its landscape are in now.

No one should be in any doubt that Faringdon councillors knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they they created a neighbourhood plan in order to let Wicklesham's owners write policies for their own land , and told people that Wicklesham Quarry, one of the UK's most important SSSIs, was a 'brownfield site' - ripe for development. The role of Faringdon Council in what  is by now a well-known employment land scam will not be forgotten.

The historic town centre and many of Faringdon's former small business people have already paid a very heavy price, and unless we fight back and win this case, the National Character Area of the Midvale Ridge will be next. 

This is a fight we can’t run away from!

Please support us and make a donation to help our legal case (link below)

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/friends-wicklesham-quarry