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Camel Solent Public Information Meeting a roaring
success.
The meeting went ahead as arranged at
Brookfield school in the main hall. The
BBC coverage was on South Today 07/01/2008 edition.
In our estimate the meeting was attended by in
excess of 800 local people (BBC TV reports 1000), with email reports of some people not being able to
attend even though we ran two sessions.
We would like to start first by thanking the
speakers, Mark Hoban MP (chair), Richard Read HCC (Planning), Robert Tutton (independent
planning consultant) and Geoff Hockley (Hampshire county councillor) who stood in for Keith Evans (councillor)
who unfortunately was stuck in an airport as his flight home was delayed.
We would also like to take this opportunity to
thank the Ria Allan and the rest of her team from Brookfield School for their
help and understanding on the night.
Last of all a big thanks goes to all of you
that attended the meeting, our apologies for the fact that some of you ended up
having to wait in the cold, and also to the local residents for the ensuing
local traffic problems. According to some reports the roads around the school were
gridlocked. This just shows the strength of the local feeling on this Hampshire
County Council proposal.
Richard Read explained the reason behind the
proposal and in particular the central government requirement of the County
Council to nominate sites for the extraction of gravel over a period of years.
In answer to a question from the floor, Richard Read said that if the proposal
went ahead, the quarrying would last in the order of twenty years and
involve a million lorry movements. This gave an indication to all present
of the enormity of the Proposal and the devastation likely to occur throughout
the Western Wards of Fareham. A number of questions were raised about the
route which lorries would follow to and from the site and although the Council
has not yet finalised traffic arrangements it was clear that Warsash Road would
have to utilised for a great part of its length.
Richard Read surprised those present by saying
that there had been support for the proposal from a number of residents and that
six reasons had been given for their support. When questioned about this
support, Richard accepted that the "support" was in fact extracted from
Objections registered with HCC by residents of Hamble who stated in their
Objections that they would prefer the the Brownwich and Chilling proposal to go
ahead as opposed to Hamble. We will be taking this up with the Council as
it is misleading, on the Council web site, for the Council to infer that there
is support for the proposal from residents whereas in fact the "residents" are
residents of Hamble, who clearly have a contrary interest, and not residents who
would be affected in any way by the proposal.
Geoffrey Hockley stated that he and his fellow
councillors were totally opposed to the proposal and would do all they could to
ensure that Brownwich and Chilling did not become Preferred Sites within the
Minerals Plan. He urged all present to notify the Hampshire County Council of
their objection to the Proposal - this could be done as indicated in the CAMEL
Agenda distributed at the meeting or by e-mail to Geoff which he would forward
to the County. Further details of how to object are contained on the
home page.
Robert Tutton, whose objection letter to the
HCC written on behalf of two founder members of CAMEL can be found
here, said that the
response to the Proposal from Fareham Borough Council was at best non-committal
and suggested that Objections sent to the HCC should be copied to Fareham
Borough Council and Fareham councillors so that they would be aware of the
strength of feeling of those who will be directly affected by the proposal.
Eastleigh Council's response to the Hamble proposal was far more favourable to
the residents of Hamble.
In closing the meetings, Mark Hoban said that
if the residents of the area wanted to preserve this very special section of
coastline and avoid the disruption and devastation which would be caused, they
must register their objection to the Proposal with the Hampshire County Council
BY THE 15TH JANUARY 2008
here
an extension of the original
consultation period negotiated by members of CAMEL because the HCC failed to
give sufficient publicity to the Proposal. The founder members of CAMEL
learned of the Proposal effectively by accident, and it was clear from a number
of observations by those attending the meetings, that they were totally unaware
of the Proposal until they received the CAMEL flier; or saw the CAMEL posters.
In conclusion, we would like to
thank those who attended the meetings and made them such a great success; and in
particular those who made a small donation on leaving to defray the costs
incurred by the members of CAMEL in connection with the meeting and web site.
We will continue to liaise with the HCC and FBC and regular updates will appear
on this web site.
We are aiming to have an mp3 file of the first
session of the meeting available on the site later this week. We also have a
copy of the Wave105 interview with Mark Hoban that we will add at the same time. | 
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