RESIDENTS, councils and MPs have objected to plans to increase quarrying near a Dorset village.

The plans are part of the Hampshire Council Minerals and Waste Planning Policy, and concerns are focused primarily on sites at Midgham Farm, Bleak Hill and Cobley Wood, near Alderholt.

Objections to the plans have been raised by Dorset Council, Alderholt Parish Council and other local councils, Simon Hoare MP and a significant number of local residents.

Residents Against Gravel Extraction – RAGE – has been co-ordinating objections to the plans.

Venetia Rowland, a resident in Alderholt, said the community had rallied around the cause, after the group hosted a meeting at a local pub last Wednesday, January 25.

“We need to make our views known, loudly, clearly and concisely,” she said.

“We had about 140, because the pub was at capacity. Everyone came up to us and said that this shouldn’t happen, why is this happening?”

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Concerns around the plans are centred on a range of issues.

Objectors have highlighted the environmental impact, lack of suitable infrastructure, and the removal of vital farm land as clear reasons for the dismissal of the sites from the plan.

The sites have already been rejected once, when planning permission was submitted in 1995. In the previous Hampshire County Council mineral and waste plan in 2013, the sites were not included.

In a letter to Hampshire County Council, North Dorset MP Simon Hoare, highlighted his objections to the plans, saying that he shares the concerns of his constituents.

“This proposal will affect the “quality of life” particularly as the machinery is to be located at the northern edge of the site closest to Alderholt, so having a severe negative impact on Alderholt residents,” he said.

“This plan will affect adversely much of Alderholt.”

Dorset Council has also submitted objections to the plans.

The council’s portfolio holder for planning, Councillor David Walsh, highlighted that although the plan said demand for sand and gravel had risen from 9.7 million tonnes to 17.7 million, not all of the planned sites were likely to be worked.

"We will want to be assured that impacts can be mitigated, should they arise,” councillor Walsh said.

"In the absence of such reassurance Dorset Council would continue to object to these sites either as planning applications, or plan allocations.”

RAGE has the full support of Alderholt Parish Council, with vice-chair of the council, Antonia Butler, saying Hampshire County Council needs to listen to the objections raised by all parties.

“It is important that that is taken into consideration by Hampshire,” she said.

“They cannot just push things ahead without consultation, without meeting the requirements of the highway code. There has been no consideration of that. Those roads that service Alderholt are small roads. They do not have the width, they do not have the surface required for lorries of that size.

“There’s a lot of areas where there appears to be no consideration or consistency.”

Chair of the council, Adrian Hibberd, summed up the position of the council.

He said: “We’re 100 per cent behind the people of Alderholt. I urge all the residents to object to Hampshire Council."

The deadline for the consultation is Tuesday, January 31.