CAMPAIGNERS have declared a ‘limited victory’ after plans to dig a huge quarry near Bourton-on-Dunsmore were scaled back by two-thirds.
Initial plans to mine up to three million tonnes of sand and gravel from a 110-hectare site – nearly half the area of Draycote Water – were slimmed down when Warwickshire County Council amended its Minerals Plan.
The site, which straddles the B4453 ‘straight mile’ to the south of the A45, will now be just 29-hectares and will produce 1.15 million tonnes of minerals.
Residents and parish councillors from Bourton, Draycote and Frankton launched the ‘Kill The Quarry, Not Our Villages’ campaign when the plans were first announced last October.
They hired a planning consultant to help produce a detailed rebuttal of the council’s plan, citing risks including, pollution, harm to wildlife and impact on traffic.
They also feared an increased risk of flooding – particularly in Draycote which lies 38 metres below the extraction site.
Lead campaigner and Bourton resident Jenny Blazeby, who is also a parish councillor, said: “The scheme now being put forward by the county council rightly reflects and acknowledges many of the concerns expressed by our campaign, and we welcome the more limited scale of the proposed operation.”
She said the amendments ostensibly reduced the likely impact on the three villages, and described WCC’s commitment to ‘a programme of phased working and progressive restoration to agriculture and nature conservation uses’ as “encouraging”.
“However,” she added, “our campaign set out to have the Bourton site removed altogether from the Minerals Plan. This remains our objective and we shall again be arguing our case when the next consultation process is launched.
“Though welcome, the amended document is, for us, only a limited victory. It’s a battle successfully fought. The war remains to be won.”
The Bourton site remains top of WCC’s list of nine preferred quarry options. It was scaled back after WCC amended its Minerals Plan to reduce the county-wide requirement for sand and gravel up to the year 2032.
