The quarry operators, CEMEX, are currently applying for planning permission to extend their operating hours and extend the area to be quarried towards Charfield.

The objections received against these planning applications from residents of Charfield express a great strength of feeling against these insensitive changes. It is obvious that we have all been affected by the quarry operations in one way or another. However, there has been reluctance to write or contact the authorities to express these concerns. 

Many of us assumed that:

1. The Council were pro-active in monitoring major industrial workings;
2. International companies working among small communities in the UK would keep within the law;
3. Companies should strive to be good neighbours with local residents by striving to improve practices and be responsive to complaints, especially when working in a controversial and environmentally unfriendly industry.

It came as quite a surprise to a group of us who have been active in organising opposition to the quarry’s workings to realise that these assumptions are absolutely not true.

Lesson 1 – Find out what is allowed
The Council have not enforced the limitations that they placed on the quarry when they granted the planning permission previously. This is the norm and perhaps it isn’t a surprising state of affairs when you consider the amount of planning that is approved and the range of restrictions that are placed on various individuals and organisations planning approvals. So one of the lessons learnt is if you have a concern about anything going on around you write to the Council to find out whether it is lawful. The Council relies on individuals to police the planning restrictions and inform them of any breaches.

Lesson 2 – Find out what is not allowed
CEMEX has ignored almost every planning restriction placed on them – they have over extracted, they have exceeded their permissible working hours and they have saturated our roads with their traffic. They have continued to work the hours they want even when the transgressions were made public and they admit to intending to continue to work the unsociable hours in the future. I admit that, even as a local resident, I was not aware that they had operating limits imposed on them. All I noticed over the last couple of years was an increase in noise, light and traffic pollution from the quarry. I did not imagine that they were breaking the law in working (naïve I know now). So the second lesson is get to know the limitations placed on any potential problem development near you. You are within your rights to see any application and any subsequent approvals including the limitations and restrictions that the Council have placed on it. Many recent planning documents are available on-line at the S.Glos website.

Lesson 3 – Tell someone about it
Do not assume that the Council works as a joined up organisation. If you write to the Planning Office with a complaint that has implications on highways, housing or environmental health your letter will NOT be passed to those departments. If any of you have raised complaints about the quarry in the past and directed them to the wrong department in the Council then it is in that department that they stay. All the objections registered against the planning applications which raise environmental health issues have not been passed to that Department by Council officials. Although members of The Wickwar Residents Action Group and Churchend Residents have directed the Environmental Health dept to the comments that many of you have made about dust and dirt from the quarry, we do not always have feedback that our information has been acted on. Hopefully these will be followed up. However, if you really want your concerns to be registered direct your issues again to the most appropriate department:

Breaches of planning - Planning Enforcement
Traffic- Highways Department
Health issues – Environmental Health
Planning comments – Planning Department
Operational annoyances, - Cemex management (plus selection of above)
Traffic obstructions - police

Additionally always keep your Parish Council and Ward Councillor informed of your concerns. They are supposed to represent you and are obliged to help you.

As I write this we do not know the outcome of the current planning applications. However I would suggest that if you experience any concerns which you think are linked to the quarry that cause YOU a problem from now on, you should write to the Council and say exactly what the problem is. Remember, if you don’t tell them then they will almost certainly not do anything about it. Emailing through their web site is quick and easy and a written complaint has real impact; it becomes a statistic, it is something they have to respond to, it is an official record of nuisance. Try to give as much detail as possible; dates, times, extent, location etc.

All these lessons learned can be applied to anything that concerns you in the village. We cannot possibly expect the Council to defend us against problems they don’t know about so if we give them the opportunity to put things right and then they don’t – we can then criticise them with impunity.

From a Charfield Resident

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