A large number of residents turned out last Saturday, and braved the treacherous roads to make a strong statement to the decision makers of the Staffordshire Moorlands.
We congregated at 9.45am at Whiston Village Hall, and then proceeded in a slow march of defiance down to Oakamoor Village Hall for refreshments and a chat about future plans. The consensus was that we must make both councillors and planning officers alike recognise the absurdity of Laver Leisure’s plans to ruin our beautiful valley.
There are so many reasons to dismiss this fatuous application, the main ones being a wholly inadequate road network, an extremely dangerous junction with the A52, and the danger presented to both residents and visitors tackling Carr Bank into Oakamoor village.
Also there is an existing restoration plan in place with Staffordshire County Council that should have been completed in March 2014, but is nowhere near complete. This restoration should be completed to the satisfaction of SCC before any afteruse for the site is considered.
The fact that up to 100 of the 250 lodges proposed could be sold to private owners means that we could have a community living up in Moneystone twice as large as that of Whiston. Whilst SMDC will deny that people can live there permanently, how do they propose to police it? And we simply do not have the infrastructure to cope with that influx of people.
Both groups would like to express their thanks to all who made the effort to attend, and also to thank the Police for ensuring our protest was made in a safe and responsible manner.
