County Councillor Andrew Stevenson met last Friday with representatives from Stop Bengeo Quarry, Bengeo Primary School and Molewood and Chapmore End Residents’ Associations: Nick Gough (Chairman of MRA), Libby Mountford (Head of Governors), Russell Norris (CEA), David Adam (Parent Governor), Mark Lynch, Katharine Elliot, and Aska Pickering.
Andrew updated us on the current status of the quarrying application and helped us understand the details of how the process works. At the last count, around 600 letters had been received and the planning officer, Felicity Hart, is now in the process of collating the points raised and deciding if further investigation is required. When all the investigations are complete, the planning officer will make a refuse/allow recommendation to the Development Control Committee, who will then make the final decision at a public meeting at County Hall. As yet, we don’t know the time of the DCC meeting – September or October seem likely, but there could be delays. Obviously we’ll will pass that information on as soon as it is available.
On the “further investigation” front, Andrew was able to tell us that:
- Public Health England are being consulted about potential risks from dust
- HCC will be arranging their own landscape assessment
- the Environment Agency are being consulted about risks to the Wadesmill Road borehole.