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WRAGE and Bransgore residents put questions to Chairman of NFPA
WRAGE was pleased to take up an offer to attend the Bransgore & District Residents’ Association (BDRA) meeting on 14th May, at which the Chairman of the New Forest Park Authority, Clive Chatters, was the guest speaker.
During his presentation, in which he described the lead-up to the New Forest receiving National Park status, Mr Chatters explained how the NFPA was expected to consider development and other activities within the Park boundary, but also to those immediately outside of the boundary that might have an impact on the National Park. With this in mind, Chris Day for WRAGE, asked Mr Chatters why, if NFPA was under a duty to consider the impact of activities around its periphery, it had been conspicuously silent on plans to extract gravel around the south-western boundary of the Park, a situation that New Forest MP, Desmond Swayne, likened to ‘digging a moat’ and filling it with waste.
Mr Chatters responded to this by suggesting that NFPA was not in a position to pass comment on the proposals, as it was a ‘new’ authority, and that it might expose itself to a legal challenge. Pressed by Dr Day to make a comment anyway, since the NFPA must acknowledge the strength of opinion of those opposed to the Roeshot and Walkford sites, Mr Chatters declined, though he said that he would raise this matter with the Authority in due course.
Upon Mr Chatters departure from the meeting, the Chair of the BDRA kindly invited Chris and WRAGE web-site manager, Andrew Johnson, to address the meeting. Having explained very briefly what WRAGE was about, Chris warned Bransgore residents that the reduction in the size of the Roeshot site should not be seen as a particularly positive thing, as the bulk of the mineral reserve lay in the remaining area. Now that Hampshire County Council had stated its own observations on the Roeshot site, it should be noted that there is no indication, as yet, where precisely gravel lorries would enter and leave Roeshot Hill, nor what might be used to fill the hole once gravel had been extracted. These, and other matters, are being followed up with Hampshire County Council by members of the BDRA and will be reported when confirmation has been received.
Chris explained that Bransgore residents, and others concerned about the Roeshot site, should express their misgivings to Hampshire County Council before the 19th June, which marks the end of the ‘issues and options’ consultation on the ‘Sites Discussion Paper (Addendum)’, which includes the amended Roeshot site. Residents were urged to object in principle to the use of any land at Roeshot for the purpose of gravel extraction, as it is WRAGE’s opinion that the site, though smaller in area than previously suggested, will be ‘the thin edge of the wedge’ and that approval would invite the applicant(s) to seek approval to develop a larger area than currently under consideration. Forms for this purpose are available via the Hampshire County Council web-site.
Describing the WRAGE web-site, Andrew Johnson pointed out that, apart from providing a source of information, visitors to the site might wish to post messages expressing their views on gravel extraction and the impact that this might have on their communities, thus generating discussion. WRAGE also hopes that the web-site will become an important means of mobilising action when the next phase of the process of consultation arises in September or October 2007.
Concluding, Andrew and Chris, suggested that the massive response to the inclusion of the Walkford and Roeshot sites in the ‘Core Strategy’ (during which nearly 5000 expressions of objection were lodged), served as a ‘warning’ to Hampshire County Council that there was enormous opposition to the extraction of gravel and in-filling with waste at these sites, and that this opposition was based on very real fears for the impact on health and well-being of residents, and visitors to the area. Chris then thanked the residents of Bransgore, and the surrounding district, for their efforts in opposing the Walkford and Roeshot sites.
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