Campaign group threatens county with legal challenge over minerals plan

It has also applied for an injunction to stop Kent submitting the plan to the Planning Inspectorate.

It has said the inclusion of the Oaken Wood site in the county minerals plan should be returned by the courts to the full council for decision.

CPRE Kent, which has so far raised £8,749 from a Crowd Justice page towards legal costs, said: “We could be about to witness one of the largest losses of ancient woodland in England in recent years if plans for a quarry extension go ahead.”

It said allocating the 41 hectares site near Maidstone for quarrying Kentish ragstone and aggregates “is shocking and unacceptable”.

Kent had not properly justified the loss of irreplaceable habitat or demonstrated the “wholly exceptional reasons” required by national planning policy, the CPRE said.

According to the campaign, when the county council voted in July to move the minerals plan forward, councillors had not seen the Regulation 19 responses or the evidence now before it.

“That consultation has since brought forward substantial objections, new evidence and alternatives to the proposed allocation that we and others believe should have been properly considered,” CPRE Kent said.

“We believe the county council must take that material into account before deciding whether to submit the Plan.”

Kent has been contacted for comment.

Mark Smulian