Hamble Quarry protest - Hundreds support campaign against plan

People lined the streets with banners and megaphones outside the Hampshire County Council building as a meeting was being held to decide the plan.

The application from Cemex had more than 2,000 objections from residents, schools and doctors. 

Car horns in the High Street were beeped in support of the protest this morning. 

Despite the recommendation to refuse the plans, residents were not letting up. 

The Hamble School brought 90 of its 1,200 pupils. Deputy head Jemma Morgan said: “Over the last 18 months, we have been involved with the local community in supporting the protest against the quarry. Our students are really passionate about that, they live locally, they're the ones who want their voices heard so we're helping to support them with that. There's health impacts, we know that the dust will cause respiratory issues for every member of the local community. We know that 144 vehicles a day will be coming down Hamble Lane, we know it's going to be one way in, one out, so it's going to have a significant impact on the students coming and going to school. 

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“The noise will have a really big impact on things like our exam season and will cause a big disruption to our students' learning. We're less than 50m away from the site, so our students are asking the question, you would build a school next to a quarry, so why would you build a quarry next to a school?”

Local residents also showed their support for the protest. Judy Kerr, of Satchell Lane, Hamble, said: “The proposals are absolutely ridiculous, they are totally wrong. It's got a lane that can't cope with traffic at the moment, so having all these lorries will be awful. The worst thing of course is all the pollution for the children, it's dangerous. It's just non-sensical, we've been protesting it for years. Also the flooding in that area is horrendous.”

Gilly Forster, of Pegasus Close, added: “There's only one road into Hamble and we recently had a fire in the village and the traffic jam it caused made everyone realise how dangerous it would be to have so many HGVs on it every day.”

Jerry Hamshar, from Hamble, said: “We want to stop this gravel pit, for the sake of the schools, I think it’s a brilliant idea that we are here protesting.”

Rob Larke said: “That quarry is the most ridiculous idea there’s ever been for the village, I live in the village and to have this representation is exactly what we need to get the word across.”

Additional reporting by Osian Davis