Oxted Sandpit
Another amazing location for SnoPark England, with the current quarry causing more and more problems for the community. Are proposal could completely change the way the local community can live and the scenery from the busy M25 motorway.
40 + Hill Side Chalets above a glistening white slope, supporting local businesses and the local community by providing more jobs and activities. Access from a carpark and Entrance building at the base of 2 Chairlifts...the possibilities could be endless
May/June 2011OXTED SANDPIT OUT OF THE MINERALS PLAN/ AGGREGATES RECYCLING CENTRE SCRAPPED
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The Government Inspector's Report into the Surrey Minerals Plan has been published and we're very pleased and relieved that it has recommended that the Sandpit in Barrow Green Road is deleted from the Plan as a preferred site for future sand extraction. Surrey County Council has now done that.
As a result of the Inspector's decision, the County Council has also abandoned its proposal for an aggregates recycling centre at the Sandpit. If this had gone ahead it would have meant hundreds more lorries on local roads.
But while there's reason to celebrate in Oxted, residents in Nutfield, Bletchingley and Godstone are very dismayed by the report because the three new quarries proposed - two in Nutfield and one in Bletchingley - are still in the Plan, now approved by the Inspector. They are likely to face planning applications for a huge amount of quarrying, all close together in Green Belt land, with the threat of hundreds of HGVs.
To read the Inspector's reports click here. For Oxted comments see paras 74 - 80 of the report on the Examination into the Primary Aggregates DPD.
The primary reason for the Inspector's recommendation to delete the Sandpit is that Surrey County Council failed to take proper account of the existing problems in Oxted with uncontrolled numbers of HGVs using the Chalkpit.
It's been a tough battle for Oxted and we're extremely grateful to Mr & Mrs Al Fayed for their support and for funding planning and legal advice. We're also grateful to East Surrey MP Sam Gyimah, to Oxted councillor Martin Fisher, to Tandridge District Council, to Sutton and East Surrey Water and to the British Horse Society who all attended the hearings and spoke against the Minerals Plan.
It's a pity that it has taken such a long, expensive and complicated legal process to force Surrey County Council to take notice of local people. We must hope that they've learnt some lessons and, in the future, will listen better to residents and the real issues that they raise, before pressing ahead with proposals that have not been properly considered.
It's very disappointing that the green light has been given for such a massive amount of quarrying in Nutfield and Bletchingley. If it goes ahead, development will stretch all along the foot of the North Downs ravaging Green Belt land and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The sheer scale of it threatens to pollute the local environment over a wide area and choke the roads with heavy lorries
Seven residents groups in Tandridge worked as a team to try to defeat the County Council's destructive Minerals Plan and, although Oxted has won out, our celebrations are muted by what's happened elsewhere.
Mr Al Fayed summed it up when he said: 'This is excellent news for Oxted but I do feel deep sympathy for other areas such as nearby Nutfield and Bletchingley where three quarries are proposed in the Green Belt threatening widespread damage to the environment.'
