Residents in Wootton, Whippingham and Arreton are celebrating following the final confirmation that their battle against plans for gravel extraction in Wootton has been won.
The land at Palmers Farm that was to be used for gravel extraction was sold recently to the James Tuttiett Charitable Trust, who stated they would turn it into a nature reserve.
While this news was welcomed by campaigners at the time, WAGE (Wootton/Whippingham Against Gravel Extraction) urged a note of caution as the planning application was still live and technically the scheme could still go ahead.
This situation has now changed with a note circulated by the Isle of Wight Council’s planning department saying they had been asked to withdraw the application. This was then confirmed within hours when the status shown on the planning portal was updated to say the application had been withdrawn, removing the final threat that the scheme might still proceed.
A WAGE spokesperson has said:
“It has been a long and costly fight, but we are finally able to toast victory. This proves the plan was always deeply flawed, but that alone was not enough to ensure it did not proceed.
“We would like to thank all the experts who assisted us, the support from both Wootton Bridge and Whippingham Parish Councils and of course the unwavering support of local residents who can now rest easy knowing the threat is gone”.
and after celebrating their success, they all walked across their gravel driveways into their homes – hypocrites tha almost all of them have gravel driveways in wootton
its not the use of gravel they were protesting about it was where it was extracted from. The middle of a town is not the right place for a host of reasons.
Nimbys – nothing more – quite happy to use gravel extracted from someone elses area, but not their own. Hypocrites
Ah,. the expected nescient comments from the uneducated / uninformed
That made me chuckle.
Obviously don’t believe in being green. Now loads of CO2 will have to be pumped into the atmosphere to import this material from elsewhere plus all the jobs lost that could have come from it.
Also a big thankyou to James and Amelia.