You may remember that last year Mrs Benton wrote in the Marlpit about the possibility of a company extracting sand and gravel from a site adjacent to her home. She asked for those members of the community who might feel strongly about the plan to write voicing their objections. Since then, I must admit I had forgotten all about it until late one afternoon recently a hand delivered letter from Tarmac arrived at home. The letter was an invitation to attend an exhibition at Horstead Centre where they would be presenting their draft proposals for developing a site in Horstead and Stanninghall for the purpose of extracting sand and gravel. We went along on Wednesday evening to find out more. I thought that those of you who were unable to attend and those who knew nothing about it might be interested in what we discovered.

The proposed site runs along Stanninghall Lane, along the main road as far as Beverley Farm and then skirts around the perimeter of the farm and behind the water tower. It cuts across to the Frettenham Road where it follows the road cutting back to Stanninghall Lane. It is a very large site. Quite a number of residential properties will be within a stone's throw of the site. The main access to the site will be at the entrance to Stanninghall Lane i.e. the cross roads with the road through to Heggatt on the B1150 main Norwich Road. Immediately beyond the entrance will be the processing plant which includes machinery for washing the stones and gravel, a concrete production area, storage and two large water lagoons about 5

metres deep. There will also be a loading area and room for a number of lorries, plant and other vehicles. A 6 metre high bank along Stanninghall Lane and Norwich Road will protect the boundary as far as Beverley Farm. This is designed to screen the site from view and it is claimed it will deflect noise. There will be some planting of hedgerow, trees and foliage. There is likely to be a 4ft high perimeter fence to the whole site.

90% of the traffic from the site will go towards Norwich. Therefore 10% will come north through the villages of Horstead and Coltishall. The amount of traffic envisaged is the equivalent of 75 lorries. These lorries will be making journeys in and out of the site and it was accepted that it actually meant 150 lorry movements. There will probably only be about 10 - 12 lorries going backwards and forwards a number of times a day with their loads and coming back to fill up again. The site will be open from 7 am until 6 pm Monday to Friday and from 7 am until 1 pm on a Saturday.

It is proposed to develop the site in stages and a regeneration programme has been developed which will consist of returning the topsoil to each area once the sand and gravel has been extracted. The drop in levels will be about 4.5 metres or 16ft approximately. It is anticipated that the site will be operational for about 20 years. The feelings of the people at the exhibition and presentation when we were there were almost universally opposed to this development. The main concerns were:

1. Access to the site on the corner of a busy main road where 90% of the traffic would be crossing the flow of traffic or slowing down for a junction which is on a slight bend within an unrestricted speed limit area. No provisions for any alterations to the road were apparent on the plans. This junction is also the school bus pick up point and the ordinary bus stop. Children use the road on foot and bicycle daily

2. The road (B1150) additional 150 journeys by lorries carrying wet sand on this road will cause the road surface to become wet, dirty and more dangerous than ever. The 150-lorry movement per day actually works out at approximately one lorry in or out of the site every 4 to 5 minutes throughout the day. It seems likely that the amount of traffic would be likely to far exceed this amount when you take into account builders calling at the site to purchase aggregates and ready mixed concrete, representatives calling, workers arriving and departing etc., etc.

3. Property values. Tarmac admitted that property values had been adversely affected at other sites they had developed. Their spokesman said that property nearby had not risen in value as similar properties had done at a distance from site in the early years of development of the site. He reckoned that they started to increase again after about two years.

4. Safety. A 4ft fence would protect the site and would be an enticing adventure play ground for local children. The site would be extremely dangerous and the representatives suggested that they would be running an education programme for local children to alert them to the dangers. The lorries going through Horstead and Coltishall would add an extra burden to the bridge, Island Garage bends area and High Street/Church Road junction. This area has already been the subject of articles in The Marlpit and is accepted as being extremely dangerous for pedestrians and motorists.

5. Final use of site. Where Tarmac have a plan for returning top soils to the site there was genuine concern that an extremely large hole quite near to the present landfill site would be the subject of a change of use to landfill when the site closed. Tarmac said that the site would not be suitable for landfill but nobody seemed convinced.

If any one feels they would like their view point noted on these proposals please contact either Norfolk County Council, Broadland District Council, Horstead and Stanninghall Parish Council or Tarmac direct. Their address is:

Tarmac Southern Ltd, Bellhouse Pit, Warren Lane, Stanway, Colchester, Essex CO3 5NH
Tel No: 01206 330 795 Fax: 01206 330 437 www.tarmac.co.uk

Mr G D Gunby (Senior Estates Surveyor-Anglia) stated that they would be considering all the suggestions that they received from local residents with a view to submitting their final planning application to the County Council before the end of February.

I fear this is not going to "go away." Tarmac have obviously invested quite heavily so far in the research work that has gone into this plan and are unlikely to stop the project because a few locals do not like it. I do think we should point out to Tarmac genuine areas of concern so that they can at least reconsider those areas before they make the final application.

Barbara Gidney