Nottinghamshire Minerals Local Plan Publication Version

This is a joint submission from Burton Joyce Parish Council and Burton Joyce Village Society. Our concerns for this Parish were fully set out in our separate submissions at the earlier and exclusively concerned with a proposed site for gravel extraction which was then under consideration but not included in the present plan, i.e. Shelford. Although that site is on the opposite side of the River Trent, the political boundary obscures the fact that many homes in Burton Joyce are closer to the then proposed extraction site (320m at the closest) than any part of the Shelford village itself. Our concerns are under three principle headings; 1. Environmental and amenity. Air pollution has been shown in many very recent studies to be a major threat to health, implication in breathing aliments and lung disease, cancers and dementia. The operation of any extraction site in the Shelford area would be done by diesel-driven machinery creating some of the most severe air pollutants, and also thick dust. It would also cause constant noise pollution. Our village is downwind of the prevailing winds in the area and would therefore suffer more severely from both problems. Lorry or the suggested barge traffic to remove the product from the site would create further such pollution. The landscape character of the Trent riverbank is deeply appreciated locally and would be totally destroyed by such workings. The existing wildlife under the agricultural and pasture regime is a valued contribution to this area and also under threat from mineral extraction. 2. Traffic The local road system in Burton Joyce, notably the A612, is already inadequate, and a great part of the lorry traffic, estimated by the site owners at several lorries per hour, generated by an extraction operation, would use this road to reach markets in the Nottingham City area. Both the congestion and the resulting pollution by traffic fumes and noise are unacceptable in the village itself. The severe traffic problems that would be created outside Burton Joyce, both in a Westerly direction and on the A6097, would also cause severe difficulty for local people. 3. Flood risk. Hundreds of Burton Joyce houses are in high flood risk zones. While a catastrophic flood is not a high probability it is a severe threat in that the damage to property would be in the order of millions and the disruption to the lives of occupants, and to the villages as a whole, would be overwhelming. Gravel digging would make the right bank of the Trent vulnerable to a heavy surge from upstream, which is increasingly likely following improved flood defenses there, and the increase in extreme weather conditions due to climate change. Such a surge could breach the weakened riverbank, disrupting the course of the river (historically unstable) and devastating the inhabited areas of Burton Joyce.