Hanson fined for dumping prohibited waste at Cassington pit

4 years ago today ...

Quarrying company fined

By Samantha Simpson, Oxford Mail » - 21st June 2006

A QUARRYING firm has been fined £8,000 for dumping prohibited waste on land near Cassington.

Hanson Quarry Products Europe is allowed to deposit items such as soil, rock, and construction waste at Cassington pit, in Worton, to restore land, after carrying out sand and gravel excavation.

But Environment Agency officers spotted unauthorised waste, including plastic, ceramics, and metal, dumped among construction waste on two separate occasions at the pit's Cresswell Fields.

At Bicester Magistrates' Court, the firm, which has more than 100 quarry sites across the UK, admitted knowingly causing controlled waste to be deposited on the land without having a waste management licence.

Rooma Horeesorun, prosecuting, said Environment Agency officers noticed a large pile of waste containing metal and plastic at the land during a visit on September 15, 2004.

Less than two weeks later, officers found two further piles of waste containing metal, plastic, rubble, and ceramics.

Mrs Horeesorun said the unauthorised waste had been deposited as part of a deal between Hanson and M&M Skips, which was based on the same site, the previous year. She said Hanson had previous convictions for environmental offences, but none similar to this offence. The illegal dumping had caused minimal contamination to the land.

Hanson said the dumper-truck driver responsible for picking up M&M's waste had been told not to leave the cab for health and safety reasons, so had been unable to see what the machine had been picking up.

However, the firm said the driver should have noticed and removed unauthorised items when the material had been deposited.

The company said it had broken off its agreement with M&M as soon as the problems had come to light, and had immediately removed the unauthorised items.

Magistrate Ann McCornack said Hanson was 'reckless' not to have a system which checked what was among materials being deposited.

The initial sentence was set at a £12,000 fine, reduced to £8,000, because Hanson had pleaded guilty. The firm was also ordered to pay £1,538 legal costs.

New Government confirms it is tearing up the South East Plan

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Destructive reservoir will require millions of tonnes of gravel

The Oxford Times published the following leader on 20th May:

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Increase in annual targets "unnecessary, inappropriate & unacceptable"

The County Council looks set to oppose the increase in annual targets in Oxfordshire at its Cabinet meeting next week ...

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Gravel Plan is threat to countryside

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/7986261.Region_pinpointed_as_major_gravel_pits_site/

Oxford Mail - Local people must fight gravel plans

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/yoursay/letters/7985362.Local_people_must_fight_gravel_plans

Local people must fight gravel plans

7:02pm Monday 5th April 2010

I write in reply to your story about gravel extraction in Thursday’s Oxford Mail.

I write as Chairman of OUTRAGE (Oxfordshire Upper Thames Residents Against Gravel Extraction), a community group which has been fighting gravel extraction in the Lower Windrush Valley for more than 30 years. We deplore the decision by the Secretary of State to increase the amount of gravel that Oxfordshire is expected to provide. At the same time, the plan makes clear that the practicality and deliverability of the amounts apportioned to each county in the region will be tested at a local level.

The figures are not inflexible. Oxfordshire County Council should be prepared to stand up and say no.

The consultation exercise it has been conducting shows no sign of its willingness to do this.

All over Oxfordshire we are being asked to sign away either our own fields or someone else’s. You mentions the council’s plan to concentrate digging in one or two areas: in south Oxfordshire and in west Oxfordshire, in the Lower Windrush Valley.

The truth is that digging has been going on in the valley for 60 years. A large part of it is now a moonscape of pits, haul routes, banked up topsoil (known as bunds), aggregate heaps and conveyors.

Much of the rest is a string of old field-shaped gravel lakes. The people who live here have had to put up with noise, dust, gravel lorries, dangerous footpaths, and the destruction of what was once a landscape of largely water meadows.

The southernmost end of the valley, where the Windrush meets the Thames at Newbridge, is still unspoilt. Here you can walk safely through fields down to the river and the Thames Path without ever seeing a bund or a conveyor.

Now the minerals corporation Hanson Aggregates wants to dig it up.

Last November the council refused it permission to excavate gravel at Stonehenge Farm, Northmoor – an interesting name in view of the Devil’s Quoits henge at Stanton Harcourt, now destroyed by gravel extraction. Hanson has appealed against this decision and on April 13, at Northmoor Village Hall, there will be a public inquiry. Anyone who loves this part of West Oxfordshire, should come and support us.

Julie Hankey

Chair of OUTRAGE

The Green

Northmoor

Witney

outragecampaign.blogspot.com

Gravel Pit Battle

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/archive/2009/11/05/Letters+(oxfordtimesletters)/4719514.Gravel_pit_battle/

Gravel pit battle

Sir – A letter in your issue of October 22 praised Oxford city councillors for their good judgement in rejecting certain planning applications. The county councillors, too, won praise last year for turning down an application by Hanson Aggregates to quarry gravel at a site between Northmoor and Standlake. That was in November 2008.

But Hansons have appealed and there is to be a public enquiry in Northmoor beginning on November 17. There is no space here to set out the arguments against this application (risk of flooding, archaeology, footpaths, lorry traffic etc). In 1945 there was one gravel pit in the Lower Windrush area; now there are between 40 and 50!

Big corporations can pay for lawyers and technical experts. Villagers have no such resources. We have formed a group, Outrage, to co-ordinate our resistance. For more information please visit outragecampaign.blogspot.com. Donations (if you are kind) may be sent to The Treasurer, Outrage, Greenfields, Church Road, Northmoor, Witney OX29 5SX.

James Craig, Standlake