Why you should write and complain

County Council shows contempt for public consultation

Planning permission has been sought by JJ Franks to extract 770,000 tonnes of sand from the Common Field from 2012, and thereafter operate a land-fill site until 2024. Whereas we understand that the County Council has assisted and advised the developer in compiling this several hundred page document over many months, the Council has allowed only two weeks for those with alternative views to express them!!  This is yet another example of Surrey County Council paying lip service to a consultation process in order to meet unrealistic and ill-considered Government targets. Meanwhile JJ Franks seek to railroad the County Council into including The Common Field within their Mineral Development Plan; a plan which is still under review until Spring 2008.

It is time for more visible action! If we do not fight this issue hard we will be sleepwalking into at least a generation of blight.

CAMEL have noted that the application has a number of inaccuracies and flaws and has identified some issues that you may like to address in your response to the Planning Application; no doubt you will have others:

·       The time given by SCC for responses is unreasonable, given the size and complexity of the submission, and the weight it could have in determining policies in the emerging development plan documentation

·       The Common Field is located in Metropolitan Green Belt approximately 600m to the south of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and approximately 400m to the south of an Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV). Enjoyment of both AONB and AGLV from the village and the North Downs will be significantly diminished by the application.

·       The existing quarry has not yet been restored to Green Belt as a condition of planning permission; what assurances could Surrey County Council give the community when it has been shown incapable of enforcing its own planning conditions at both local quarries?

·       Destruction of  skylark habitat. The Common Field is a breeding ground for skylarks whose population has declined by 75% between 1972 and 1996. The recommendation by the developer’s ecologist is simply to remove the habitat and scare the birds away!!

·       Detrimental impact on Acorns School and health hazard to vulnerable children. The proposed application would pose a threat to the health of young vulnerable children through the increase in dust, which has been identified by the developer as spreading at least 200m from the site. Safety will be compromised with a quarry so near to a school of inquisitive children, in addition to the increased risk of parents having to park on a narrow, busy main road to drop children off at school, which is already being monitored by Community Speed Watch.

·       The livelihood of the school itself would be threatened. Parents have already voiced concern that they would not want their children attending a school so close to a quarry, where young, healthy children would be exposed to unnecessary and unacceptable risk.

Over the coming weeks CAMEL - will be asking for your support to lobby Surrey County Council against this planning application and proposed development of an area so close to the centre of Betchworth Village.

Surrey County Council has proven time and again that it is incapable of enforcing planning conditions. The Council has admitted, in writing, that it has been negligent in failing to identify and stop illegal businesses within the Green Belt.

Equally, no reliance may be placed on commitments or assurances which the developer may give in its attempts to secure planning permission to quarry the Common Field. We may reasonably assume that the pattern of repeated extensions, delays, failure to back-fill, exploitative practices and industrialisation of the Green Belt which has characterised the operation of Reigate Road Quarry, would be repeated, ad nauseam at the Common Field. Indeed, the current application already includes a lightly veiled threat that if it is resisted, then the developer will re-apply for an even larger area of extraction and backfill.

The developer’s application is currently promising completion by 2024; however, bear in mind that the original consents for Reigate Road Quarry were for completion of all quarrying activities and restoration to Green Belt some twenty to thirty years ago.

Beware! Don’t sleepwalk into a nightmare. ACT NOW!

Write immediately, quoting 2007/0526 to: Ms Pauline Sparrow, Environment and Regulation, Surrey County Council, County Hall, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey KT1 2DY.

Register your details at www.camel.org.uk and become a CAMEL campaigner!
 

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