A public meeting is to be held in Wootton next week to discuss the latest plans by Wight Building Materials to extract gravel from Palmers Farm. After 2 years of protest, residents in Wootton are renewing their efforts to fight against the controversial proposals. It comes as Wight Building Materials submits an amendment to their previous application including a revised access route onto and along Palmers Road to and from Lushington Hill, as previously reported by Island Echo. The changes are set to be discussed at a meeting next Thursday (30th May), to be held at Wootton Community Primary School at 18:00. The meeting will be chaired by local councillor, Sarah Redrup. A spokesperson for Wotton, Whippingham and Arreton Against Gravel Extraction (WAGE) has said:
“The unsuitability of access routes is one of multiple reasons why we have argued for the IOW Council to reject this application. The proximity of the proposed site to current and new housing, the nearest being just 50 metres away, is unacceptable given the potential risk to health from dust and silicates and in terms of noise and nuisance. There is also significant risk to four nearby protected sites, Kings Quay Shore Site of Special Scientific Interest; the Solent Maritime Special Area of Conservation, the Solent & Southampton Special Protection Area and Southampton and Solent Ramsar site. “We are not convinced by Wight Buildings Materials claims that extraction at Palmers Farm is critical to the continued production of construction materials on the Island. Future needs could be met from increased recycled and marine aggregates from existing sites and these options should be fully considered”.
Councillor Sarah Redrup adds:
“Since the planning application was first submitted in 2022, there have been 106 objections lodged from residents, community groups and three Parish Councils. They have numerous legitimate concerns over the possible health, environmental and traffic implications of this application which should not be ignored.”
I feel that this saga has suffered from a lack of transparency from the outset.
This was first mooted as the traffic would all be herded down Brocks Copse to Whippingham, which just about everyone thought was a bluff.
So it was indeed.
The intention from the outset has always been for all the traffic to use Palmers Road as suspected.
Given this complete disregard for the locals, is it any wonder that the entire set up is viewed with suspicion?
Palmers Road is residential, it has parked vehicles, rightly so, and there will be many incidences of vehicle strikes, not to mention mud and debris!
When people call those residents nimby’s what they really mean is they themselves are GINIMBY’s Glad It’s Not In MY Back Yard!!!
Insure your cars if worried, other people have to live with social housing feral trash, live next door to single parents, who never sleep alone, as most all have some drug dealing or smoking ‘partner’ always their, or live next to affordable housing buyers, who ought not to be living in their area otherwise they wouldn’t need to have ‘affordable’ homes.
So think yourself lucky, we have Lake, benefit kept, feral rubbish running riot most nights. Your misery will end at 4, ours just begins.
And that’s just the Caulkheads
Builders are going to need all the gravel they can get once the expected socialist government get in.
Starmer will only be happy once he has filled the island with “affordable” housing and swamped it with even more feral trash… in fact he has already made a manifesto pledge to do just that….
Did you know that Wight Building Materials Ltd is not actually an Island owned Company
All of the Directors are West Sussex Manchester or Leicestershire so why should a company not governed on the island be allowed to purge our island materials
Cos they are used for building projects on the island