Couple’s horror at quarry just 300ft from dream home
A COUPLE are battling to stop a quarry opening 300ft from their cherished home after discovering it was given planning consent 60 years ago.
Barbara and Simon Campbell bought the 16th century manor house with 15 acres of land for £270,000 at auction in 1999.
They spent the next two decades turning the Grade II listed property into the perfect home for them and their three children.
Unknown to them the field next door was given planning consent to become a quarry in the 1950s but never used.
Now council chiefs are poised to approve detailed plans for the site in Sudbrook, near Grantham, Lincs, where diggers will extract one million tons of sand.
Barbara, 54, and Simon, 57, fear for their health – with concerns about cancer caused by dust – and for the value of their home.
The couple, who own an engi- neering firm, are also worried about the damage to wildlife. Their plot boasts two lakes and woods.
Barbara said: “The fact this was effectively an existing quarry should have been available to us at the time we bought the property. We can’t go back and question what was agreed and legitimised at the time. It’s the unfairness of this and the lack of transparency that really galls us.
“This property was a labour of love and it’s become our family home.”
Lincolnshire County Council and Tamar (Selby) Group can open the quarry under Review of Old Mineral Permissions (Romp) laws.
But Barbara said: “It feels like it’s all getting railroaded through and it doesn’t matter what we say. If you were [now] to apply for a brand new quarry on that site would you get permission?
“You would never allow it because it’s far too close to residential property.
“Technically it cannot be refused. The application discussed currently is to agree on planning standards it will operate under.
“Because permission has already been given, if the council refused for any reason or tried to stop it the operator is free to claim compensation from them. We just find it absolutely staggering that you could buy a home and not realise that you’ve got permission for a quarry.”
Simon and Barbara, whose children are Megan and Rosie, 23, and son Alasdair, 21, do not know what their home is worth. But properties nearby have an average value of more than £350,000.
However, Barbara said: “Dust is a huge concern, being so close.
“The planning application said the majority of small particles, the particles that are dangerous to health, will drop out in the first 100 metres. Well great, but we live in the first 100 metres.”
Lincolnshire County Council’s head of planning Neil McBride said: “The quarry has had planning permission since the 1950s.
“We have and we will continue to engage with local residents, highways teams, public health and the environment agency among others to find the most acceptable and sophisticated planning conditions for the site to reopen.”