Residents of Rye Harbour have come out strongly against a planning application by the aggregate business Long Rake Spar located on Harbour Road. Over 50 letters of objection have been submitted to Rother District Council in less than a week and a petition has also been set up to protest against the business’s expansion plans.
The petition reads: "Long Rake Spar are a large aggregate yard on the Harbour Road, immediately next to the Church of the Holy Spirit in Rye Harbour village. They have recently submitted a planning application to operate 24 hours a day, with unlimited HGV movements and floodlighting and the consultation period for the planning application is almost over.
"Their activities can already be heard across the village and nature reserve very early in the morning right through to the small hours at night, often starting work before 6am and finishing at 2am. They are also running large lorries continually and generating a lot of dust and noise. The photo shows some recent concrete crushing works they undertook without any dust suppression.
"Their planning consent prohibits all of this, but they are ignoring their planning conditions and have recently applied for expansion of their operations, including 24 hour working, floodlights through the night, fans running through the night and unlimited vehicle movements! Many local residents have already lodged their formal opposition to this application on the Rother District Council planning portal.
"We want to demonstrate to Long Rake Spar that the community wants them to respect their existing planning conditions. We don't want 24 hour working, constant noise, dust, floodlights and unlimited lorry movements!
"If you want to help oppose this, please lodge lodge a formal objection here - it only takes a couple of minutes.
"In addition, you can help by signing this petition, which we will also submit to the council. However, please also lodge a formal objection via the planning portal!
"If you are currently suffering from the noise, light pollution, dust or traffic from Long Rake Spar's ongoing early morning and late-night operations in Rye Harbour, please contact Environmental Health at Rother District Council."
