Residents meet to campaign against quarry plans

12.00.00am GMT Fri 27th Feb 2009

At a meeting of residents of Milton Malsor and Collingtree along with other concerned locals, held on Friday 27th February, they heard local MP Brian Binley try and distance himself from his own party's stance on the County Council.

Following several years of campaigning by residents and local parish councils from Collingtree and Milton Malsor against the siting of a sand extraction quarry only 200 metres from the local residents, Cllr Brian Binley MP tried to distance himself from the actions of the County Council he sits upon.

The threat of the quarry being placed so close to houses has been very much a real threat for many years.

"The effect on the lives of locals will be considerable" said Scott Collins, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats in South Northamptonshire . "The issues of dust and noise pollution and also pollution from the potentially huge increase in the levels of industrial traffic to and from the site have still not been fully addressed to the satisfaction of the local communities."

Alternative sites include a site at Stoke Albany near Corby. This site has none of the impediments of having an historic rural village within 200 metres of the site and from this was noted several times in previous reports as having less impact on the local area with almost no effect on the local area from noise, dust and vibration from industrial plant. Yet this site has not been preferred to the Milton Malsor / Collingtree site.

"I have to say the stance taken by Cllr Ingram and Brian Binley seems to be one of now saying how wrong the quarry will be for the area, whilst not having been able to prevent the site being listed a preferred site for a quarry" said Scott Collins after the meeting.

The decision was initially planned to be called by local County Councillors including several Liberal Democrats. "Unfortunately the failure to find reasons to call in the decision resulted in rejection ." said Jane Hollis, one of the Lib Dem County Councillors who had signed up to call the decision in.

Scott Collins commented that this was "A great shame for local people that the local councillors failed to find adequate reasons to ensure that the decision was called in. But we are where we are and the most important thing now is that we must make sure that the communities' views are fully understood and fought for".