Planning officers at Gloucestershire County Council have recommended refusal for a sand and gravel quarry in Church End, near Twyning. The applicant proposed to:
extract 98,000 tonnes of sand and gravel from 3.04 hectares and restore site to agriculture, amenity and nature conservation uses with imported fill over a period of 2.5 years
The "minimum extraction stand-off margins would be 60m from the nearest residential property" - not unlike the wholly inadequate stand-offs proposed at Straitgate, an operation that would last 10-12 years.
Despite the modest scale of the Church End scheme, Gloucestershire planning officers concluded:
8.1 It is recommended that planning permission be REFUSED for the following reasons:
1. The proposal fails to demonstrate that the noise from mineral extraction operations can be mitigated to an acceptable level so as not to interfere with local residents’ use and enjoyment of their property contrary to Minerals Local Plan policies DC1 and E14, the Tewkesbury Borough Local Plan policy EVT3 and Paragraph 144 of the NPPF.
2. The proposal would have an unacceptable, adverse impact on the environment arising from the impact of dust for those living, visiting and working in the vicinity of the site contrary to Minerals Local Plan Policy DC1 and Paragraph 144 of the NPPF...
