A Hampshire quarry has been granted an “unjustified” and “unnecessary” extension of time to extract sand, despite residents’ concerns about discharges into the River Slea.

Hampshire County Council has permitted extending the life of the Frith End quarry in Grooms Farm Lane, near Bordon, to March 2026 and continue to extract 100,000 tonnes of sand and gravel.

The Frith End Quarry is an active sand extraction quarry that supplies soft and silica sand in Hampshire. The site comprises approximately 17.4 hectares.

The site has provided sand to the local market, typically around 80,000 tonnes yearly. However, in 2020 and 2021, a major flood caused sand sales to drop to about 12,000 tonnes, a 75 per cent decrease from the usual volume. Sales started to pick up again in the spring of 2022.

Consequently, the company requested an extension because previous floods at the quarry prevented the extraction of all the soft sand and silica from the site.

The proposal aimed to expand the south-west extension area (Ranks Hill) from above the groundwater level to below it. It also sought to modify the approved restoration plan and associated landscape elements.

Additionally, the proposal included extending the timeline for quarry extraction and subsequent restoration activities, allowing for sand and gravel extraction until March 2026, with restoration planned to continue until September 2026.

According to the plan, the expansion would provide approximately 80,000 tonnes of soft and silica sand, in addition to the approximately 50,000 tonnes currently permitted for extraction at the existing Frith End Quarry.

The application received 13 comments, 11 objecting to the proposal and two supporting it.

Resident Mr Graham said when planning permission was granted in 1990, the company projected a life of around seven years and after 34 years and “many applications later”, he asked: “Why should local residents put up with seemingly endless decades of industrial quarrying with still no enforceable end in sight?”

He added that Grundon’s record of “broken closure dates” suggests that this latest one will, “based on past experience, be allowed to slip as well.”

Another resident, James Robertson, said Grundon has been asking for “a bit more” in a pattern and added, ” This won’t be the last request, whatever they said.”

In the same line, Mr and Mrs Hewitt said that the company has exceeded “all reasonable” extensions to its licence and should now conclude its extractions and restore the site as “they have promised to do over the many years.”

“Enough is enough!” they added.

Frensham Fly Fishers members accused the company of polluting the River Slea at the regulatory committee (May 20).

They said: “This proposal is a very dangerous threat to the environment.”

“We see a dramatic fall in the catch rates since 2021, when the water from the quarry was pumped into the Slea. We also have problems with sedimentation, which was not seen before the incident in February 2020.

“When you put sediment on the ground, you are killing biodiversity and the food for the fish. You are also covering up gravel, which is where lots of animals and fish live and lay their eggs, including migratory fish.

“We are affecting the ecology downstream, and very little work is being done on the impact around the quarry facility. Because of the connectivity of the Slea, the whole work here impacts the downstream and none of that has been analysed properly.”

An accusation that Grundons rejected, saying: “We have never pumped directly into the river Slea.”

Although the Environment Agency did not raise any objection to the proposal, Frensham Fly Fishers said it would contact the agency to inform them of its findings.

Eight of the 12 councillors voted in favour, three against, and one abstained.