A THREE-month delay on a decision for a Dorset quarry extension has been caused by consultation notices being sent to an out of date email.

The application involves a new extraction area for sand and gravel at the Westford Park Farm section of the Chard Junction Quarry near Thorncombe, over seven years.

Dorset Council’s strategic planning committee were due to hear the application on Monday, but committee chairman Cllr Robin Cook said that officers had sent the notification to an old email address for the Tatworth and Forton parish council.

By the time the error was discovered it would not have given parish councillors time to consider the implication of what Cllr Cook said was a quite complicated change to the original consent for the quarry.

Residents living near the site have lodged objections to the proposals saying it will be more visible and disruptive, will lose good agricultural land and be harmful to wildlife.

The application, from Aggregate Industries UK, asks for temporary planning permission to extract approximately 930,000 tonnes of sand and gravel over seven years with a new internal haul road being constructed to reduce HGV trips on the local road network.

Papers say the site is 500 metres to the south west of the existing plant and processing area and is made up of four farm fields.

Several farm cottages are within 150 metres together with a stables and piggery.

The site is within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and has several rights of way around the proposed extension, including one which crosses the site, which would be temporarily diverted.

Three phases are proposed – building the haul road and extracting gravel on and around its path with extraction then continuing from north to south to a maximum depth of 45 metres in the final phase.

Topsoil and overburden material will be used to create a temporary screen bund with restoration taking place as the site progresses.