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Alan Boyce, Clerk to the Parish Council, writes on 11 August 2004:
WAKE UP!!!!!!
It is just possible that not everyone yet knows of the threat that Longworth and Hinton Waldrist are under from the Hanson quarry proposal. And although those who do have expressed their unhappiness with it, and are hoping to have adequate conditions imposed on the work, it may well be that the village as a whole is simply not aware of the true size of the threat. The recent presentation by Hansons at Longworth Village Hall was a skilful public relations exercise; among other things, it skipped over the fine detail of exactly what the site will look like during the ten years of excavation, instead painting a rosy picture of the end game. It promised careful management of the excavating process * water to damp the dust, a bund to stop the noise, traffic management, no excavation below the water table, and so on. But it failed to address more fundamental issues such as despoiling the landscape and lowering property values. Unfortunately, those who have the power to grant or refuse planning permission are simply not required to take the latter into account. In any case, how sure can we be that promises will be kept? Hills, who are quarrying sand in Tubney Wood, have only recently been granted by the County Council a 26% extension to their original excavation area; and companies, like the investments we are constantly reminded of, can go down as well as up. Normal commercial horizons seldom extend beyond three years, and even after that time often bear little relation to what was originally envisaged. Can we be sure that Hansons, no matter how willing they might be now, will be able to keep their promises throughout an entire decade? And who is to impose sanctions if they should not? Certainly not the Vale Council, who have no powers over mineral extraction. The County Council? And if all does go to plan, and suitable profits are extracted along with the sand, that might indeed be the worst possible outcome - why then stop there? Once the principle of breaching the High Landscape Value of the Corallian Ridge is established, who is to say that further profitable land sales will not lead to more extraction further along the ridge * coming ever closer to the centres of both villages?
Fifteen years ago, at great expense, we in Longworth fought * and lost * the Battle of the Bypass. It was in the end routed through the village rather than around it, despite minimal difference in cost. Now that its dual carriageway has split the village in two, the tidy mind of bureaucracy is bent on reducing Longworth to just that part lying north of the A420, with the south third being subsumed into a greater Southmoor and Kingston Bagpuize. No longer shall we be Longworth, you might say, but Shortworth. Now that we can see these consequences, we should not allow ourselves to be deterred by that failure. Subsequent events have proved we were right to resist then; are we not justified in resisting now?
Among those closest to the proposed site, the residents of small hamlet that forms the Longworth House Estate have already met with Hanson's representative, and handed him a list of relevant questions. They await his reply; meantime the Village as a whole should not be sitting on its hands. Is this a proper occasion for a Village Meeting? Contact me.
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