Preferred Options consultation document

This is a letter from South West Norfolk Constituency Labour Party, voicing our objections to quarrying in the Shouldham area, specifically those set out by AOS E and SIL 02.

We object on a number of grounds. The proposal, should it go ahead, will affect the population of South West Norfolk in a number of ways, some of them harmful, some of them arguably wrong-headed.

Health:
Shouldham Warren is used by a large number of people. Local authorities have responsibility under The Health and Social Care Act 2012 to improve public health and reduce health inequality. We all know the pubic health benefits of exercise, many of these arguments have been aired by others and we echo them here: it is an area widely used for walks, bike rides, runs, 'forest bathing' and horse riding. The health benefits of the natural environment itself are less familiar to the general public. It has been shown that access to an environment rich in microorganisms has positive benefits for general health. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5635058/
Costs of treating people in the NHS are spiralling, not least because of the rise of a range of diseases, from diabetes to autism and anxiety to obesity. It has been shown that these diseases are affected in a positive way by a diverse series of microbiota (the microbes that live in the gut). Microbes are key to a healthy microbiome, and access to an environment rich in microorganisms, like well-established woodland, enhances the microbiome by contact with these microorganisms, many of which can be beneficial in ways that science failed until recently to understand. Loss of access to environments rich a diverse microbial content takes away their health-giving properties from a section of the population who are unlikely to be able to replace it with anything similar. Access to public parks is no replacement; environmentally speaking they have much less microbial diversity. It means that wealthier people, landowners and their friends and family, or people who can afford to travel long distances to similar environments, will have health benefits and opportunities that less affluent members of the population will lose. This is to increase, rather than reduce health inequality and is an attack on the health and well-being of a section of our community who are also less rich in the resources, be they time, well-being, education, easy access to sources of reference, or through sheer exhaustion, to enable them to protest about this loss.

Economic issues

According to Sibelco, only one or two full time jobs are likely to be created at the quarry site. This does not seem enough added local value to counter the environmental losses, disruption and pollution it will create.

In a letter of objection, Shouldham Parish Council have cited a wide discrepancy between the figures they have found by examining the publicly available accounts filed by Sibelco, and the figures they claim to have put into the public economy. If NCC enter into an agreement with the company in a state of awareness that their public statements and their private policy are at odds with one another, how can we the public, feel at ease with their assurances on other, more sensitive matters.
The code of conduct for County Councillors asks you to focus on the 'principles of conduct in public life of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership.' Doesn't this oblige our Councillors to look into this discrepancy in relation to Sibelco's account of these figures?

Environment:

Losing Shouldham Warren means loss of species, flora and fauna. Forestry England's report 'Shouldham & Bilney Forest Plan' points out the natural wealth of the area, and to read it is to conclude that it would be utterly self-destructive, in a situation where so many of our species are imperilled, to allow it to go ahead. The government's Clean Growth Strategy recommends not felling, but planting trees.
And in any case, old woodland has developed interactions between ecological communities of organisms that help trees evolve defence mechanisms to ward off pathogens. In other words, they have useful properties that newly planted trees don't have - something like knocking down large and practical areas of housing to replace them with a shanty town. It may develop eventually, but it won't have the infrastructure for life of the thing it replaces.


Climate change:

At this time of climate crisis it is foolhardy to cut trees, an important carbon sink. It's not only trees that are capable of storing CO2 - the soil has that capability too, and a rich soil is a carbon rich soil. Losing the forest, and replacing it with a hole in the ground, depleted both of soil and of trees, is foolhardy at this time. It should be NCC's role to think of the future of the children and grandchildren of their constituency, and in a heating world, wonder if doing something that will make an active contribution to air pollution, have deleterious effects likely to increase asthma and breathing difficulties (see the Forest Plan) and an adverse effect on water systems (Forest Plan) is worth the gain. And this is not to mention the fact that the very company they are planning to allow to develop the site is the largest trader in fracking sand - just the kind of sand that will be extracted here. Fracking produces methane, 84 times more potent than CO2. Even supposing that Sibelco did not plan to use the sand for fracking (which seems unlikely given the discrepancy between the projected amount we need for high quality glass and the amount they plan to extract) is this the company we should, locally and nationally, in effect be granting access to these resources?

Other:

This is not to mention the problems with RAF Marham, with bird strikes, with Sibelco's record on site restoration. We object, in the strongest possible terms, to this proposal.

This is a letter from South West Norfolk Constituency Labour Party, voicing our objections to quarrying in the Shouldham area, specifically those set out by AOS E and SIL 02.

We object on a number of grounds. The proposal, should it go ahead, will affect the population of South West Norfolk in a number of ways, some of them harmful, some of them arguably wrong-headed.

Health:
Shouldham Warren is used by a large number of people. Local authorities have responsibility under The Health and Social Care Act 2012 to improve public health and reduce health inequality. We all know the pubic health benefits of exercise, many of these arguments have been aired by others and we echo them here: it is an area widely used for walks, bike rides, runs, 'forest bathing' and horse riding. The health benefits of the natural environment itself are less familiar to the general public. It has been shown that access to an environment rich in microorganisms has positive benefits for general health. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5635058/
Costs of treating people in the NHS are spiralling, not least because of the rise of a range of diseases, from diabetes to autism and anxiety to obesity. It has been shown that these diseases are affected in a positive way by a diverse series of microbiota (the microbes that live in the gut). Microbes are key to a healthy microbiome, and access to an environment rich in microorganisms, like well-established woodland, enhances the microbiome by contact with these microorganisms, many of which can be beneficial in ways that science failed until recently to understand. Loss of access to environments rich a diverse microbial content takes away their health-giving properties from a section of the population who are unlikely to be able to replace it with anything similar. Access to public parks is no replacement; environmentally speaking they have much less microbial diversity. It means that wealthier people, landowners and their friends and family, or people who can afford to travel long distances to similar environments, will have health benefits and opportunities that less affluent members of the population will lose. This is to increase, rather than reduce health inequality and is an attack on the health and well-being of a section of our community who are also less rich in the resources, be they time, well-being, education, easy access to sources of reference, or through sheer exhaustion, to enable them to protest about this loss.

Economic issues

According to Sibelco, only one or two full time jobs are likely to be created at the quarry site. This does not seem enough added local value to counter the environmental losses, disruption and pollution it will create.

In a letter of objection, Shouldham Parish Council have cited a wide discrepancy between the figures they have found by examining the publicly available accounts filed by Sibelco, and the figures they claim to have put into the public economy. If NCC enter into an agreement with the company in a state of awareness that their public statements and their private policy are at odds with one another, how can we the public, feel at ease with their assurances on other, more sensitive matters.
The code of conduct for County Councillors asks you to focus on the 'principles of conduct in public life of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership.' Doesn't this oblige our Councillors to look into this discrepancy in relation to Sibelco's account of these figures?

Environment:

Losing Shouldham Warren means loss of species, flora and fauna. Forestry England's report 'Shouldham & Bilney Forest Plan' points out the natural wealth of the area, and to read it is to conclude that it would be utterly self-destructive, in a situation where so many of our species are imperilled, to allow it to go ahead. The government's Clean Growth Strategy recommends not felling, but planting trees.
And in any case, old woodland has developed interactions between ecological communities of organisms that help trees evolve defence mechanisms to ward off pathogens. In other words, they have useful properties that newly planted trees don't have - something like knocking down large and practical areas of housing to replace them with a shanty town. It may develop eventually, but it won't have the infrastructure for life of the thing it replaces.


Climate change:

At this time of climate crisis it is foolhardy to cut trees, an important carbon sink. It's not only trees that are capable of storing CO2 - the soil has that capability too, and a rich soil is a carbon rich soil. Losing the forest, and replacing it with a hole in the ground, depleted both of soil and of trees, is foolhardy at this time. It should be NCC's role to think of the future of the children and grandchildren of their constituency, and in a heating world, wonder if doing something that will make an active contribution to air pollution, have deleterious effects likely to increase asthma and breathing difficulties (see the Forest Plan) and an adverse effect on water systems (Forest Plan) is worth the gain. And this is not to mention the fact that the very company they are planning to allow to develop the site is the largest trader in fracking sand - just the kind of sand that will be extracted here. Fracking produces methane, 84 times more potent than CO2. Even supposing that Sibelco did not plan to use the sand for fracking (which seems unlikely given the discrepancy between the projected amount we need for high quality glass and the amount they plan to extract) is this the company we should, locally and nationally, in effect be granting access to these resources?

Other:

This is not to mention the problems with RAF Marham, with bird strikes, with Sibelco's record on site restoration. We object, in the strongest possible terms, to this proposal.