Initial Consultation document

Please accept this email as a registration of our opposition to the recent application to establish a quarry at Waveney Forest.

Our objection is threefold as follows.

1. Commercial: We run a dog walking business in the area and the forest is unique locally in providing a large area to exercise bigger energetic dogs while providing shelter from the high temperatures and sun, and access to water they can swim in.
Any restrictions to using this public amenity would have a large impact on our ability to run our business and care for the animals in our trust, as well as we do now.

2. Environmental: As the role of trees in holding moisture in the ground becomes more and more prevalent in the news, in regards to flood control and wildfire prevention, it seems madness to support any scheme advocating the wholesale removal of tree canopy from our area.
People are becoming more and more aware of the role trees play in stabilising our environment and you only have to look at the furore around Sheffield's tree felling program to know that any such move would be hugely unpopular and generate widescale opposition.
The destruction of habitat for flora and fauna would also be quite unacceptable.
Add to that the environmental and health impacts caused by extra traffic on an already busy road and it is impossible to justify acceptance of the proposal.

3. Public Interest: The forest provides a unique public amenity in the region and its loss would be felt hardest not only by those in the immediate vicinity but across the region in general.
It is used not only by dog walkers but by cyclists, runners, families and walkers and again, the loss of this amenity at a time when the health benefits, both physical and mental, of exercise and simply being outdoors in nature are now widely recognised would be an act of madness, no perceived commercial benefit could compensate for.
We urge you to reject this proposal.

Yours sincerely
John and Teresa
Dog-go!
Walking, Adventures & Exercise.