Nottingham's planning committee rejected officer advice to back the quarry on 23 September. Its reasons for the public inquiry come back on 21 October.

Nottingham City Council will oppose the Barton in Fabis quarry at its public inquiry. Its Planning Committee voted on Wednesday against its own officers, who had recommended that the city say it would have granted permission.

The committee has not yet agreed its reasons. Those were deferred to a further officer report at a later meeting. The next Planning Committee on the city’s calendar is Wednesday 21 October. (Nottingham City Council, Planning Committee meetings)

That leaves both councils on the same side. Nottinghamshire County Council refused the larger county application in December 2025. The applicant appealed both councils in July, so a planning inspector will decide at a single public inquiry. Our preview of Wednesday’s meeting sets out the scheme, the traffic figures and the 1,431 objections.

What happened at the meeting

No minutes have been published yet. This account is taken from the city council’s own webcast of the meeting. The quarry item ran for about an hour and a half.

The chair, Councillor Leslie Ayoola, called the vote about two hours into the webcast. He asked for those in favour of the officer recommendation, those against and those abstaining. The count was not read out, so we cannot say how many councillors voted each way.

Closing the item, the chair said “the committee have made a decision against the officers’ recommendations”. He said the grounds on which the council will defend its position at the inquiry would come back to a later committee, with a further officer report.

The site covers 85.15 hectares. Only 10.7 hectares of it, about 12%, is inside the city boundary. That is the part the city was asked about. (Nottingham City Council, officer report)

The objections councillors raised

After the vote, officers asked the committee to say where it saw harm. Councillors named:

  • dust and air quality, especially for Lark Hill Retirement Village at Clifton, raised by the chair and by Councillor Sam Harris
  • noise, traffic and the loss of public rights of way used for walking, raised by Councillor Pavlos Kotsonis
  • the site’s closeness to Lark Hill and to Barton in Fabis itself
  • wildlife, including barn owls, harvest mice and otters, and the hedgerows and woodland near the site, raised by Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos

Councillor Kotsonis also pointed out that the city’s parcel is not allocated in the Minerals Local Plan, unlike most of the county land.

Councillor Kevin Clarke said members had been given too little notice of the item. He said he had only found out the week before that it was coming to committee.

Councillor Graham Chapman warned against leaning on air quality. He said the inspector would have wide experience of other quarries, and that the county council had not refused on those grounds. He urged the city to stick close to the county’s reasons, on landscape and ecology, so the two councils made one case.

What officers told them

Officers had recommended the opposite, and they were blunt about what comes next.

Asked whether they could promise no health impact at Lark Hill, the planning officer said planning could never offer that. She said there would be dust thresholds and real-time monitoring, with work stopping if limits were breached. Planning policy, she said, means there is no need to withhold permission if an impact can be mitigated, managed and monitored through conditions.

The council’s service director for planning and transport told the committee that “the planning committee does not work as a referendum”. The number of objections highlights the issues, he said, but it cannot decide them. At an appeal, every reason has to be justified and evidenced, and there is a test of reasonableness. He described what the council is walking into: “This is a public inquiry that will happen”, with King’s Counsel and solicitors, over a number of days.

The MP’s letter

The meeting’s update sheet carried a letter sent to committee members on 21 September by Lilian Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South. It made five points against the officer recommendation:

  • dust and public health at Lark Hill, where the processing plant would be about 218 metres away, and for around 26,000 people within 1.5km of the site
  • uncertainty over the effect on Holme Pit Site of Special Scientific Interest
  • no pressing need, with a sand and gravel landbank of about 16 years against a national minimum of seven
  • the case for independently checking the applicant’s ability to pay for restoration
  • the level of unresolved concern from residents and groups

Officers replied that they “remain satisfied that the recommendation within the Committee Report is appropriate”. They noted the county had not refused on air quality or health grounds, although the county parcel holds about 88% of the scheme and all of its processing plant. (Nottingham City Council, update sheet)

What it means for you

  • Nothing is decided yet. The inspector decides, not either council. No inquiry date has been published.
  • The city’s reasons are not fixed. They should be settled at a later committee. The next one listed is 21 October, and its papers will name the grounds the city will argue.
  • Your earlier objection still counts. Representations made to either council go to the inspector.
  • The references to follow are 24/00242/PMFUL3 at the city, ES/4621 at the county and 8/24/00388/CMA at Rushcliffe.

Barton in Fabis is about five miles south west of West Bridgford. Lorries from the quarry would use a new junction on Green Street and then the A453.

We track Rushcliffe’s own applications on our West Bridgford planning news page.

Sources