Upwood Park, Besselsleigh

Oxfordshire County Council has granted planning permission to Hills Quarry Products for a new soft sand quarry at Upwood Park Estate near Besselsleigh just off the A420. This new quarry is required to replace the nearby Tubney Woods Quarry when that comes to an end in 2012.

The extraction programme will be the same as at Tubney Woods and will work the same geological deposit of high quality sand and serve the same markets. Rates of extraction and numbers of traffic movements will be similar. After extraction, three of the four fields will be backfilled with inert subsoil type materials to restore the land to agriculture at original ground levels which will consequentially improve the agricultural potential.

The largest field is to be restored at a low level (i.e. with no infilling) and transferred to BBOWT to manage in perpetuity for nature conservation and habitat bio-diversity. It will complement the ecological interest of the adjoining Sites of Special Scientific Interest and National Nature Reserves.

You can view the following planning documents here on our website:

* Non technical summary of planning application

* Sequence of working plan