Dominique Mayer, of Fore Street, Buckfastleigh, writes:

Devon County Council Planning's rejection of the application for a waste processing facility at Whitecleaves Quarry in Buckfastleigh is very welcome to the 95 per cent of residents who voted against it at the parish poll.

It was heartening that the members of the planning committee acknowledged the reasonable concerns of residents, which have been sidelined for the last four years by the promoters of this ill-conceived plan.

The Health Impact Assessment clearly identified negative consequences to the health and wellbeing of residents if the plan was to go ahead.

During the discussions it emerged that, if adopted, the proximity of this industrial facility to a residential area would be the closest in the whole country – at 50 metres from the nearest house to the quarry entrance, and 230 metres to the reprocessing area for incinerator bottom ash.

Three other sites in England were given as existing examples, but all had separate access roads that did not require materials of unknown toxicity travelling through an inhabited zone and directly past two public parks. Nor were they placed within greenfield land next to a Special Area of Conservation.

It is expected that the promoters of the plan will persist in trying to foist it on the community against their will, as the current law allows them to appeal without further defence from residents.

If allowed, this development would become a precedent for further industrial encroachment into residential areas across the country; therefore it is very important that it should be resisted for national, as well as local, reasons.THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION