Great Bardfield Parish Council

Great Bardfield Parish Council prepare to fight the Gravel Pit Proposal, Braintree Road

What is proposed?

The Parish Council (PC) share the strength of feeling and concern about the recent proposal for a Gravel (Sand) Pit on agricultural land on Braintree Road, just south of the Blue Egg Shop, Montessori Nursery and Garden Centre and adjacent to Long Green and other well walked footpaths. This site would provide 10.5m tons of silica sand over a 10 year period, the sand would be processed on site and its distribution would involve an average of 57 lorry movements a day, 5 days a week over that 10 year period. This is clearly unacceptable!

Prepare your objections

We urge all concerned residents to prepare to make their objections once a full application has been made by the applicant to Essex County Council, probably in June or July. We will oppose this application in the strongest possible terms and encourage individuals to submit their own responses at that time. Objections must be made to Essex County Council not to the applicant.

A community event/meeting will be called once we have the full application as this will give further information about the proposals and the likely impact on the community.

Can you help?

We are setting up a working group to assist us in fighting this proposal. We have professional assistance from experts in planning and development and have had offers of help from others with strong expertise in various areas. We would be pleased to hear from anyone with relevant experience and expertise in areas such as of concern, such as:

• Planning
• Mineral extraction
• Legal
• Ecology
• Environment and landscape
• Highways and transport
• Potential health issues

If you have expert knowledge in any of these areas or any other that you feel is relevant and would be willing to give some time to preparing our case against this prospective application. Please contact Kate Fox, Clerk to the Parish Council at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Please click here to open details of the 14th May Consultation Event (in PDF format).