A BID to extend a quarry has been rejected.

Dorset councillors discussed a proposal for a seven-year extension to Chard Junction Quarry near Thorncombe at a strategic planning meeting.

The application proposed a new extraction area for sand and gravel at the Westford Park Farm section of the quarry and asked 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.

Local residents lodged objections saying it will be more visible and disruptive, will lose good agricultural land and be harmful to wildlife.

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 have been temporarily diverted if the application had been approved.

At Monday's meeting, councillors voted 6-3 in favour of rejecting the application, made by Aggregate Industries UK.

Committee chairman Cllr Robin Cook said: "Members of the committee gave it a good debate, however, it was concluded that the adverse impact of the proposal on the environment did outweigh the benefits of the new part of the quarry.

"To approve the application there would have to have been exceptional circumstances and members of the committee felt that, in this case, those exceptional circumstances were not proven and were not sufficient to outweigh the impact on the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty."