Hampshire Tories - digging deeper

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 11th Jul 2008

In a packed Hampshire County Council meeting councillors were told by the public why their Minerals plan is unsound. The numbers attending filled the public gallery and had to be accommodated on the floor of the chamber. Cllr Hughes said after the meeting, "I applaud all those members of the public who attended this meeting and put forward their concerns. The arguments they made deserved to be listened to but they have been ignored by the Conservatives and Labour councillors, who together forced through the Minerals Plan at much higher levels of mineral extraction than the market currently demands."

The concerns expressed by the public deputations were; lack of adequate consultation, using a flawed methodology in assessing the impact of HGVs on our roads. That the need for gravel extraction had for the last ten years fallen every year. Last year it was 1.244 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) just half of what it had been at the end of the nineties despite record levels of Hampshire house-building. The Minerals plan as approved provides for 1.82 million tonnes per annum target for the amount of sand and gravel extracted from land in Hampshire.