Quarry: YOU can make a difference

OBJECT TO THE QUARRY AND CONCRETE PLANT APPLICATION. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

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Dear Ladies

Have you made your email or online objection to the Quarry yet? If so, thank you. If not, please read on and at the end are the details of how to act.

We have only 4 days to act. As many objections as possible are needed. We can all make a difference. Hills have put in a planning application for a massive Gravel Quarry AND Concrete Plant on an area covering 104 hectares - that is the size of 165 football pitches or 23 Wembley stadiums. They plan to extract '2.5 million tonnes of sand and gravel'. It will go RIGHT down to the river bank - see plan:

Some of you will have walked with Ladies of Culham along the Thames Path last summer from Clifton Hampden to Culham. Many of you will have walked this way independently over the years. If the planning goes ahead there will be a huge section of that hitherto unspoilt walk bordered by fields and the river with wonderful sightings of swans and herons and other wildlife on which, in Hills's own admission, the impact will be 'major adverse'. In other words the fields will be turned into scenes like this:

These photos were taken from the Hills's own website. Please do not let this happen to the countryside between Culham and Clifton Hampden.

Additionally there will doubtless be unsightly barriers, unpleasant fencing and horrible 'Keep out' safety notices.

In addition, of course, there will be the traffic. There will be a new 'purpose designed access' from the A415. For which read MORE LIGHTS, MORE CONGESTION ....

And even if the lorries are not supposed to come through Culham, you can bet the other service vehicles and myriad white vans will use our village and Culham Bridge as a rat run to avoid the congestion their own lorries cause on the A415.

The volume, noise and safety issues cannot even be imagined. There will be 110 HGV movements per day. Lorries like this every 6 minutes, 6 days a week along the A415 through Abingdon and Clifton Hampden:

This will go on for a MINIMUM of 10 years. This is likely to be extended, as has been the case at other quarries, including Hills Quarry at Tubney, to 25 years. The extension would not merely be in terms of time, but may well come over the railway line towards Culham. If allowed this Quarry and Concrete Plant will affect many of us for the rest of our lives.

FACTS:
* Oxfordshire does not need the gravel - it has stockpiles to last 18+ years.
* The demand for gravel is diminishing as other materials are used.
* The area is mostly sand so materials will have to be brought in - on more lorries - to make concrete.
* We do not need the recreational lakes they offer to - eventually - restore the area to.
* There is a monument of national importance, a Bronze Age barrow cemetery, on the land which Hills cannot touch but which Historic England fears will be adversely affected by any quarrying works.

Please do not let this happen to our lovely villages and the green belt in between.

It takes only minutes to object. Quoting planning ref: MW.0039/16 ; send an email BY MAY 13TH (yes, Friday 13th!) to the case officer:

mary.thompson@oxfordshire.gov.uk

(with c.c. to Lorraine.lindsay-gale@oxfordshire.gov.uk - not essential)

or write to her:
Mary Thompson
Planning, Oxfordshire County Council
Speedwell House, Speedwell Street, Oxford OX1 1NE

Please act soon and please pass this message on to friends who are not on our Ladies of Culham email circulation list. If we don't defeat it now it will come....

Many thanks
Mary Rickford
(assisted by Caroline Baird)

You can take a look at the plans and Hills's attempts to argue against the objections raised here: www.fullamoorquarry.co.uk

See also the website of Bachport (Burcot and Clifton Hampden for Protection of the River Thames) who are leading the campaign: https://bachport.uk/ but need our help.