Hello friend of Dungeness!
Thank you for your previous objections and
comments regarding the proposal to excavate shingle from the Dungeness nature
reserve (made via the www.lovedungeness.org
website). Your involvement in our campaign has helped keep the application at
bay thus far (thank you); however, the applicants continue to pursue their
quarry and recently submitted additional information to Kent County Council
regarding their plans [1]. This information once again reveals that the
applicants haven’t changed their plans at all. More alarmingly, the
applicants also conceded at a recent public meeting that the twelve-year term of
their planning application could be insufficient, and they may want to extend
the operational life of the quarry beyond this! [2]
Dungeness is the world’s largest shingle
structure and is the most diverse and extensive stable vegetated shingle in
Europe. Excavating shingle from Dungeness would damage this internationally
important and environmentally diverse habitat for generations. Both Lydd
Town Council and New Romney Town Council have twice opposed the
application for a quarry at Dungeness due to the fact that it is
flawed—and, with some 70 lorry movements expected across the Dungeness
nature reserve each day when the quarry is operational, our local MP
(Mr Damian Collins) has stated that we are “right to be concerned about the
number of proposed vehicular movements”.
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We only have a couple of days to voice
our concerns with the new information and reconfirm our objections to the
quarry—and it would help enormously if you could send Kent
County Council a message too. You can do so
via our website (or email Kent County Council:
planning.applications@kent.gov.uk). Feel free to use the email we’ve drafted to
Kent County Council below, regarding the latest information from the
applicants.
Thanks again for your help protecting the
Dungeness Nature Reserve from the proposed quarry. Please share this email with
anybody you think may be interested (or alert them via
our website).
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[1] In case you missed it, the new information is
available to view online – just search for the application number
“KCC/SH/0381/2011” on Kent County Council’s website at http://tinyurl.com/kentplanning
and click on the “Documents” tab. The new information has a filing date of
November 2013.
[2] From the Meeting of the Planning and Environment
Committee held in the Council Chamber, Town Hall, New Romney on Wednesday, 25
September. Minutes available online at http://tinyurl.com/oebwql4
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Draft response to Kent County Council (use as you please)
I write to oppose planning application
KCC/SH/0381/2011, which seeks permission to excavate shingle from Dungeness in
Kent, and to object to the recent submission made by the applicants (as
published on the Authority’s website with a filing date of 5 November 2013).
The applicants’ state in their recent submission
that their proposal will have only “Minor/negligible” effects and result in a
“Low/negligible” magnitude of change on the Dungeness nature reserve. If the
proposal is allowed to proceed, large-scale shingle extraction operations will
clearly be heard and visible from across the nature reserve and the 70 lorry
movements proposed per day will dangerously crowd the narrow road that winds
through it. The quarry will obviously have more significant effects and greater
impacts than the applicants’ suggest on this fragile Natura 2000 site, which is
protected by the Habitats Regulations and the Authority’s own planning
policies.
Dungeness is internationally important for its
physiography, flora and fauna. Whether standing on its vast stone beaches
surrounded by intense light and bright blue skies, or walking in the low coastal
mist that makes the sky and the stones appear completely grey, the experience is
always exhilarating and breath-taking. Permitting a quarry in this special
environment—which is heavily protected by national and international nature
conservation designations—would rob Kent of one of the jewels in its crown and
set an extremely worrying precedent for other special and supposedly protected
areas in Britain.
It is clear from both the application and the
applicants’ remarks at a recent public meeting that the proposal to excavate
shingle in Dungeness is poorly considered and inappropriate. (The applicants
even acknowledged at a Meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee held in
New Romney on Wednesday, 25 September, that the twelve-year term of their
planning application could be insufficient, and they may want to extend the
operational life of the quarry in the Dungeness Nature Reserve beyond this.) The
proposed quarry would change the unique character of Dungeness for generations
to come and won't provide local communities with the effective long-term flood
protection they need.
I ask you to reject the application and to push
the applicants to pursue a more effective and sustainable alternative that does
not involve Dungeness.
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