Hearty congratulations are due. One of Ottery St Mary's longest standing councillors and 'servant' of the town has been elected as mayor, reports the Sidmouth Herald.
Ottery elects its new mayor https://t.co/vHHMITapka— Sidmouth Herald (@sidmouthherald) May 13, 2019
The new Mayor of Ottery St Mary, Cllr Roger Giles was elected as he has a wealth of experience having been a Councillor of the Town Council since 1991. He has also been a member of Devon County Council for Ottery Rural from 1993 to 2013 and a member of East Devon District Council Ottery Town from 1995 to 2019.
Over and above everything else Roger has done for the community, he has for very many years – long before 2012, when he wrote the article below – also been a vociferous campaigner against a quarry at Straitgate Farm. Roger also served on DCC’s Development Management Committee for many years – a committee responsible for determining mineral planning applications. He therefore knows unsustainable development when he sees it.
What Roger wrote in 2012 is just as applicable today – 7 years on, with no sign of Aggregate Industries having dealt with multiple outstanding constraints including on groundwater and flooding – as it was then:
Bizarrely DCC wants to see a new quarry opened at Straitgate Farm on prime farming land, in attractive countryside, when there is an existing quarry at Hillhead, near Uffculme, with sand and gravel resources that could meet Devon's needs for many decades to come.
DCC admits that there are “significant constraints” to quarrying at Straitgate. In addition to the noise and dust problems that would be caused to nearby residents, DCC refers to “the underlying water table and consequent impacts on private water supplies and nearby wildlife sites” as being significant constraints.
The underlying water table meets the drinking water needs of something like 100 people. That drinking water source might well be lost.
The “nearby wildlife sites” are Cadhay Bog and Cadhay Wood. They have both been designated as County Wildlife Sites containing ancient woodland which are dependent on receiving a regular supply of water from the Straitgate Farm area. Quarrying at Straitgate would almost certainly result in intermittent flows of water causing Cadhay Bog and Cadhay Wood to dry out and be damaged.
Even more worrying is the impact on flood risk in Ottery. The water table at Straitgate Farm is the source of the Thorne Farm Stream, which caused such devastation on much of western Ottery in October 2008. It is also the source of two other streams which caused flooding at Cadhay and Coombelake on the same night.
The likelihood of quarrying at Straitgate is that the present “sponge effect” - gradual absorption and gradual release of rainwater, would be replaced by sudden run-off (and dry spells). It is quite incomprehensible to me that DCC can be so reckless as to press ahead with quarrying at Straitgate Farm when the devastation on the Thorne Farm estate and elsewhere is such a stark and recent memory.
Quite why DCC is considering quarrying at Straitgate, when there is no need, and where there are so many significant constraints is something that you may wish to ask DCC.
Indeed.
