Historic buildings being damaged by quarry lorries, say residents

People living in Condover say their lives are being made a misery by heavy goods vehicles travelling through the village on their way to and from the nearby Gonsal quarry.

Shropshire Council's planning officers say plans by Salop Sand and Gravel to extend the quarry to the south of the existing sight, as well as to dig deeper beneath existing lagoons, should be given the go ahead when they go before councillors tomorrow.

But Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski, and Councillor Dan Morris have both voiced fierce objections to the plans.

Resident Sarah Lean-Williams said roads through the village were in a poor state of repair and were not wide enough to sustain heavy vehicles safely.

"Quarry traffic is regularly having to mount the pavements in the village to allow oncoming traffic to pass," she said.

"This is incredibly dangerous for pedestrians through the village, many a time I have had to usher my children against a wall to allow this to happen which is neither safe nor acceptable.

"Additionally, the size and weight of vehicles passing through is having a damaging effect on the older buildings and sandstone walls, ours included. Our property can be felt to shake when heavy vehicles are passing, particularly if they are mounting and dismounting the kerb or areas where the surface of the road is in disrepair."

Fellow villager David Green said that while existing planning conditions restricted the quarry's opening times to between 7.30am and 5pm, these were not being adhered to.

"Lorries routinely pass through the village travelling to or from the quarry outside these hours, sometimes before 6.30am and as late as 7

Mr Green said his property had already suffered significant damage.

"We have already had extensive work performed to strengthen one of our outbuildings, constructed in the late 19th century, due to structural cracking," he said.

"We now need to perform a complete underpinning of a timber-framed building, dating back to the late 17th century, that is suffering from similar problems."

Councillor Morris said that Shropshire Council's development plan had ruled there should be no extension to the quarry's activities without a link road connecting to the A49, to avoid the need for heavy traffic to pass through the village. But the company said because it was looking to expand to the south of its existing operations a link road would not be viable.

Councillor Morris produced a set of photographs taken by the Condover Residents Action Group showing the impact heavy traffic was having on the village centre. He said while council planners said existing roads could cope with a three-fold increase in traffic from the quarry, the pictures proved otherwise.

"I'm not objecting to the quarry itself, my objection is the route that the lorries will take," he said. "They need to find a new route, either through the link road, or through the current road network."

Mr Kawczynski added: "I'm extremely concerned about the impact of these huge lorries and juggernauts going through this small Salopian village." He said he would be looking at how parish councils could be given new powers to have a greater say on such schemes in future.

Salop Sand and Gravel said it could reduce some of these problems by switching from articulated lorries to smaller, rigid vehicles.

But resident Frank Oldaker dismissed this, and said the quarry must not be allowed to expand without providing a new access road to avoid the village, as laid down in the council's development plan.

"The idea that 20- or 30-ton rigid vehicles will cause much less risk to people and property is not true," he said.

"There is no reference to 'near misses' that people have experienced which show there is potential for a serious incident. The proposed 'tweaks' to road layout would not help."

Mr Oldaker accused the company of flouting limits on the amounts of material it was allowed to extract under the current planning consent, saying it had permission to remove 49,210 tons of material, but was actually extracting three times that.

A report commissioned by the company said there had been no road accidents involving heavy goods vehicles over the past five years, and there was no reason to believe there would be any adverse effect on public safety.

It said the company paid the council almost nine pence for every ton extracted from the site, to cover wear and tear to local roads, and planned to continue doing so.

It added that no extra traffic would be generated by the extension. It said the extension would safeguard 11 jobs at the site, as well as supporting employment elsewhere.

"No unacceptable impacts have been identified in relation to residential amenity, the environment, landscape character, soil resources or the highway network," it said.

Two letters in support of the plans were also sent to Shropshire Council's southern planning committee, which will consider the proposals tomorrow.