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The following correspondence includes letters between Peter McGregor and Hanson Aggregates
commencing on 21 July 04. This page will be updated as further correspondence takes place.
Mr Philip Duncan
Hanson Aggregates
Claydon Pike
Lechlade
Gloucestershire
GL7 3DT
21st July 2004
Dear Mr Duncan
I enclose a note of the meeting which was held on 15th July. Apart from recording what we believe to have been said it includes some reactions arising from further thought about your information. The meeting and our own investigations have overtaken or answered many of the questions in my letter of 30th June. However I should like a response to questions 3 and 9, Please also confirm or comment upon what you are recorded as having said at the meeting on 15th July.
Last night’s presentation at the Village Hall could not seriously be described as consultation and I hope that you will not try to represent it as such. What it completely lacked was evidence of what the site would be like during the ten development years. We also have four versions now of what the final state will be.
There are other omissions and uncertainties, so that Hanson have taken on no commitments.
I look forward to receiving your reply and confirmation of the meeting notes.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGregor
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Notes on Meeting of 15 July 2004 at Squirrel Lodge
Hanson
Mr Phillip Duncan, (Natural Resources Manager)
Mr Andrew Woolley (Principal Landscape Architect)
Mr Anthony Clarkson (Landscape Architect)
Residents
Graham Caswell
Paul Wheeler
Rachel Cartwright
Peter McGregor
Nicola Clark (part time)
This is a summary of the points which emerged, and which have been considered also since the meeting:.
- We are unimpressed by your idea of consultation since you did not seek to talk to the people most affected by your proposals Instead you went public in a way which maximised the knowledge of potential planning blight. Only the fact that one of us was on the Parish Council had brought the matter to our attention. (No one here has received notice of your presentation.)
- We said that we wanted to listen and question rather than express points of view. You said that you hoped that there would be a two way discussion. This paper seeks to record and comment on what you said at the meeting.
- You outlined again and we understand the national policy of defining a reserve of sites for soft sand extraction with planning permission. This does not explain the Hanson wish to begin extraction at the Pinewood site as soon as permission is obtained, since the demand is being met from existing sites, and Hanson is buying half the output already. We assume that the motive is simply increasing Hanson profits. If Hanson were to produce 125,000 tonnes from the site in (say) 2006, what would the other sandpits do? At the moment they produce 200,000 tonnes p.a. The demand would shrink to 75,000 tonnes p.a.
- You told us that you are looking at other sites on the Corallian Ridge, “some way away”. These should be declared so that the environmental aspects can be considered.
- There is no problem caused by delays in producing the new local plan, as you suggested, since there is an existing plan. The urgency cannot be explained in this way. Perhaps Hanson is worried that the new plan may take a different point of view.
- You gave a review of likely working methods. You clearly had not understood the wind situation (we told you that there was a hill called Windmill Hill to the west of the site) The frequent and strong westerly winds would blow sand into our properties. You said that in windy conditions the sand would be wetted by a bowser. We doubted that this would be wholly effective.
- You said that Hanson would probably start at the south (A420) end, strip the topsoil etc. for one year’s production, extract the sand, strip for another year and back fill the topsoil into the first year’s excavation, having first raised the level with imported inert backfill. The working day would be Monday to Friday 7 am to 6 pm and Saturday mornings 7 am to 1 pm. There would be six weeks or so of “intense activity” while the stripping was taking place, with machines brought in.
- You seemed to lack confidence that the inert backfill could be obtained. If there were a shortage the recovery work could be held up so that several years’ excavation might be open.
- Contrary to what Mr Duncan had told me you said that the land was intended to be returned to agricultural use since it is Grade 2 agricultural land. If you could not get the inert landfill, we do not understand how it could be returned to agricultural use. Average depth of excavation is thought to be 5m, but some parts as deep as 10m.
- You said that there was no problem with the A420/Pine Woods road junction. We think it is dangerous now (no deceleration lane going towards Oxford) and think heavy lorries emerging would make it very dangerous.
- You did not seem to be very clear about the depth of the water table. We are concerned about the effect of digging on the many mature trees in our grounds.
- You said that you would put new hedgerows along Pine Woods Road, a tree belt or hedgerow between the pit and Hinton Waldrist and would reinstate any original hedgerow that was damaged. We said that we did not think you could use the entrance proposed without damaging the trees/hedge at the A420 end.
- We discussed noise. We said that the proposed bund would not reduce the noise, and in any case would not be created immediately. You said that you would ask your noise expert to comment (we have noted that machines noise from the Hatford sandpit travels well over one kilometre in spite of a bund and a plantation of cupressus leylandii.) You said that you use white noise reversing signals instead of bleepers and that these are acceptable to the Health and Safety Commission.
- You said that the footpath would be realigned at each step of extraction to give minimum diversion. We do not know how this would work is several years’ excavations were left open due to lack of inert backfill.
- You asked whether an offer to plant hedges along the boundaries of the Wheelers’ and Caswells’ gardens would help them to look more favourably on the development. This was a slightly insulting suggestion. You were told that if they had wanted hedges they would have planted them. They wanted a rural outlook.
We agreed to meet again before you submit the application. We took away from the meeting a belief that the environmental effects would be serious, that you could not be certain about your working methods or restoration, and that your proposed environment protection factors probably would not work. From the presentation this evening we realised that it was a public relations exercise in which no “facts” presented could be relied upon.
Peter McGregor
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Mr Philip Duncan
Hanson Aggregates
Claydon Pike
Lechlade
Gloucestershire
GL7 3DT
5th August 2004
Dear Mr Duncan
I am surprised that I have not received a response to my letter of 21st July in view of your stated wish to have a two way discussion. We need to be clear about your proposals and so far there is nothing clear about them apart from your wish to start digging as soon as possible.
If there is still a lack of information about present environmental factors, uncertainty about your proposed method of working and confusion over your intentions concerning the final state of the proposed site I shall be grateful if you will simply acknowledge the receipt of my letter. I should like to be sure that you have received it.
It might have been better if we had got through this stage of establishing facts before you launched your PR presentation.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGregor
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From Mr Duncan, when he returned from holiday (although he had had time to respond before he went!)
18 August 2004
Dear Mr McGregor
Thank you for your letter of 5th August. As I said we are going through the process of gathering backgound environmental information which will guide the final design of the working and restoration scheme. This includes the information gathered from our Public Consultation (sic) with the local community.
Once we have draft designs for the operation and restoration I will arrange to visit you and your neighbours to discuss matters further.
If there is anything you wish to discuss in the meantime please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
PR DUNCAN
NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGER.
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Peter McGregor's reply
20th August 2004
Mr Philip Duncan
Hanson Aggregates
Claydon Pike
Lechlade
Gloucestershire GL7 3DT
Dear Mr Duncan
I have your letter oif 18th August.
Although it does not deal with any of the points raised at our meeting and of which I sent you my note it does appear to confirm my comments in my letter of 5th August, which were
- that Hanson has not studied and still lacks information about present environmental factors,
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that Hanson has still not worked out its proposed method of working
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that there is still confusion over your intentions (and indeed the possibilities) concerning the final state of the proposed site
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that the only objective is to get access to a new site well before existing sites have been worked out, to which everything else is subordinated.
The PR presentation (please do not attempt to present it to the Council as a consultation) was one of conjecture and misleading statements presumably intended to bamboozle the local inhabitants, the most imaginative being the diagram of how the field might be worked, in which you had coloured it green. There were no facts about your intentions.
Since you do not deal with and have not dealt with any of the relevant issues there is little point in my “discussing” things with you. I confirm that when you do know something about what you would like to do we shall be interested to hear from you.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGregor
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Peter McGregor's comment:
It can be seen from this that Hanson are trying to bluff their way through and have dealt with none of the important issues. The note of the meeting was an accurate one and Hanson want to ignore it. Nothing said or shown at the Village Hall meeting is of the slightest value or indeed relevance.
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Copy of letter from Hanson 01/09/04
Dear Mr McGregor
Thank you for your most recent letter (i.e. mine of 20th August - PMcG)
I agree with the four main points you make. We are still gathering information and have not yet made any final decisions on how we will work and restore the site.
That said, I do not accept that the initial PR presentation was misleading. Our aim was to ask for views on outline proposals, not to set out detailed intentions. The feedback we received, both written and verbal, will be helpful in drawing up our draft proposals.
I will contact you when we reach this stage.
Yours sincerely
P R Duncan.
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Peter McGregor's reply
6th September 2004
Mr Philip Duncan
Hanson Aggregates
Claydon Pike
Lechlade
Gloucestershire GL7 3DT
Dear Mr Duncan
Thank you for your letter of 1st September.
I am glad to see that we are making progress in that you agree with the assessment of the situation set out in my letter of 20th August 2004 and that you have downgraded your “Public Consultation” to a PR exercise. However it would still be more appropriate to talk about “how we would work and restore the site” rather than “how we will work and restore the site.”
I have met no one who attended the PR presentation who thought that you were listening or that it was anything other than an attempt to put a gloss on a very nasty proposal whilst not giving real facts (as you now admit) and in consequence making no commitments. It shows rather clearly that the presentation in the village hall was premature, whilst introducing a planning blight to our properties.
You did not respond to my question about when and from whom the field was purchased. Of course we can look it up at the Land Registry but the difference between what you told us and what is believed by local inhabitants does not help your credibility.
I suppose that you must factor into your decisions the possibility that adopted environmental constraints may make an apparently interesting site unavailable. It may be that in this case the purchase was also premature.
I look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGregor
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