Every day we are reminded of injustice in the UK – the fight of postmasters against the Post Office, or haemophiliacs against the medical indifference are just the tip of an iceberg of a justice system loaded against the people. It’s only when it impacts directly do you realise just how lopsided UK planning has become. There is no social justice – just the jackboot of corporate greed being crushed into the face of humanity… forever.
Yesterday was a very bad day. My village is going to be sacrificed to make foreign investors rich. So much for a restful retirement…
I have written many times about the insanity of the Hamble Quarry – digging a dirty great hole right in the middle of a prosperous village to quarry gravel which nobody needs right next to homes, shops, schools and businesses. It was approved by the planning inspectorate yesterday. It’s a slap in the face for over 20,000 citizens in the area, who will see their home values impacted, and futures blighted. Already young people are leaving because they don’t want their kids trying to learn just meters away from a working quarry. The local economy will be decimated and the environment compromised.
Cemex, a Mexican firm specialising in Cement and Waste Management, has been given permission to quarry 1.7 million tonnes of gravel and sand from the very heart of the pretty seaside village of Hamble-le-Rice. Every single home in the village is within 500 meters of the site. The three schools are all in touching distance. Many homes will be blighted by massive berms put up to shield the quarry work.
A schoolkid asked the planning inspector at the appeal: “You would not build a school next to a quarry, so why dig a quarry next to a school?” He never answered her.
Why?