High Court to hear judicial review challenge over neighbourhood plan and quarry
The High Court will next week (14-15 June) hear a judicial review challenge over a decision in a neighbourhood plan to allocate a quarry site for heavy industry and warehousing.
Anna Hoare is seeking to raise £20,000 via Crowd Justice for the full hearing. She had already raised more than £10,000 in 2016 to obtain permission to bring the case.
Hoare said local people wanted to save the “unique site for its own sake, and for the enjoyment of future generations”.
Natural England had described Wicklesham Quarry Site of Special Scientific Interest as "one of Britain's richest palaeontological localities”, she added.
Hoare said: “Environmental policies should ensure Wicklesham Quarry's protection, and the Quarry's planning conditions state it must be restored to agricultural use. Yet Faringdon Council has allocated it for heavy industry and warehousing (B2/ B8) in the recent Neighbourhood Plan.
“By adopting the Neighbourhood Plan, the Vale of White Horse District Council has approved this policy - even though since 2008 it has consistently rejected the landowner's proposals to turn it into an industrial site. The District Council has stated it is ‘far in excess’ of Faringdon's needs, and its location in open countryside outside the settlement boundary makes it unsuitable.”
The claimant argued that a 20 acre industrial/ logistics site at Wicklesham Quarry “would destroy Faringdon's valued landscape setting, and its unique and irreplaceable site of geo and biodiversity would be lost for ever under warehouses”.
The High Court will examine the lawfulness of the neighbourhood plan, and test the strength of the environmental policies and planning conditions that should protect Wicklesham Quarry from development, she said.
Hoare’s legal team comprises barrister Pavlos Eleftheriadis of Francis Taylor Building and solicitor Linda Felton of Fortune Green Legal Practice.
Eleftheriadis has previously said: "The case raises many important points of principle of environmental justice. It will allow the court to examine how far a neighbourhood plan can depart from the strategic choices of the broader Local Plan, what effect a biodiversity action plan has on planning policy, how exactly environmental assessment informs such a process, as well as the role and weight of restoration and aftercare obligations when quarrying operations come to an end."
