Straitgate Farm near Ottery St Mary in Devon was bought in 1965 in the hope it would yield 20 million tonnes of sand & gravel. Straitgate Action Group was formed in 2001 to oppose a quarry due to concerns over water supplies, ancient woodlands, protected species, road safety and more. After finally gaining permission for just 1 million tonnes on appeal, Holcim UK – formerly Aggregate Industries – abandoned its plans in 2025. This blog records the long path to victory.
This is our first entry on this new blog. We have set it up with the aim of keeping Straitgate Farm and its threat from quarrying in the public eye. The consultation is about to close and DCC will consider the responses before voting in the autumn on whether to include Straitgate Farm as a Preferred Site for sand and gravel quarrying in its Minerals Plan. We are grateful to Claire Wright and her blog for doing such a good job at publicising the issues and letting people know what's been going on. This site should enable us to flesh out some of the detail, allow us to feed back any news, answer any questions the best we can, and facilitate a 'forum' on Straitgate issues within the comments section. More information will be added in due course. If anyone has any suggestions we'd be pleased to hear them. In the meantime, many thanks to all our contributors and other group members.
