At long last, Norfolk County Council has finally got round to publishing the much delayed Mineral Site Allocation List. This is the document that we've all been waiting for. The one that will let us know if our objections during the initial consultation process were in vain, or if those in the county council planning department actually listened to us.
Well, the good news is that Norfolk County Council have clearly taken our concerns seriously, because the MIN-93 Pentney quarry site has been dropped from the list of proposed sites.
The document can be found here, and the section relevant to our site can be found on page 9. Pentneys MIN93 site has been marked in red and annotated as UNACCEPTABLE.
Put simply, this means that Pentney has been Saved.
The document still has to go before the cabinet of elected representatives at Norfolk County Council on September 14th for their seal of approval, however the publication of this document is an extremely welcome and reassuring preview of that meeting.

I would like to take this opportunity, both for myself, and on behalf of the Save Pentney Action Group to thank everyone out there who helped and supported our campaign.
Some of you offered moral support, some offered financial support, hundreds of you displayed car stickers all over the country, and many people came forward to offer us the benefit of their skills, knowledge and expertise.
I'm extremely grateful to the press, both local and national, for all the publicity and support we've received during the long drawn out campaign.
I'd like to thank my ever patient and long suffering wife, Janet who has stood by me while I ranted away to anyone who would listen, and disappeared for long hours each day to do research, make phone calls, attend meetings and write letters.
And last but not least, the warmest and deepest thanks go out to our wonderful neighbour, mr Stephen Fry and his sister Jo. Without Stephen's endorsement, our campaign would never have made it to the national press and our fight would have been considerably harder.

The Save Pentney Action Group, in association with the Save Pentney website would like to extend our thanks to Norfolk County Council for allowing us to present them with a dossier of our findings during the past 10 months of campaigning, and for allowing us to make a presentation to the planning committee at County Hall on December 1st.
Click here to view the dossier.

At first we were told by NCC that an announcement would be made regarding the quarry site allocations in November 2008. Then as November started to approach, they announced delays and gave us a new date of January 30th 2009. Now however, we hear that NCC have delayed the decision yet again, but this time nobody knows for certain what the new date is.
Click here for more information.

There are a number of signifigant obstacles within the remaining 18.26 hectare site that eat into the workable area quite considerably as the engineers have regulations that must be adhered to. This will result in a greatly reduced site, just over 10 hectares, and a site of that size simply cannot hope to sustain the expected yield of 1 million tonnes of sand and gravel.
Click here for more information.

Since we first learned that our village is at risk of being swallowed up by a dirty great quarry, I have been sending dozens of letters a week to organisations and individuals both directly and indirectly involved with MIN93. However, a number of organisations and individuals are either ignoring my letters, or else just refusing to respond to correspondence.
Click here for more information.

Can't find the story you were looking for? Perhaps it's in our archive of older stories. Browse through the list of headlines below until you find the one you're looking for.

Save Pentney Open Forum in the village hall
Pentney, the poor second cousins
Middleton Aggregates not interested in MIN93
Get a free car sticker now
Did you know?...some interesting facts
Is this the future we want for our children?
Wildlife and the MIN93 site
BBC Look East report on quarry dangers
Open Forum in the village hall - July 12th
NCC delays the results of consultation process
Self defeating arguments and circular logic
Stress. The invisible killer
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Noise Noise Noise
Bat Surveys Required
Moving The Goalposts
Pentney Say's NO
Don't Let Them Deceive You
No Compensation For Pentney's Home Owners
Pentney turns out in force
Unusual air traffic over Pentney
Why aren't they talking to us?
Some things just don't add up.

In addition to this, we also have an archive of press articles about our campaign to save Pentney village. To see Pentney in the press, browse through the list of headlines below until you find the one you're looking for. These links will open in a new window.

Fears gravel quarry will swallow Pentney - Lynn News, April 11th 2008
Anger and outrage at proposal for new quarry - EDP, April 14th 2008
Quarries plan: Protestors dig in - Lynn News, April 20th 2008
Leave poor Pentney be - EDP, April 25th 2008
Consultation over, Now the fight begins - Lynn News, April 25th 2008
Fry backs villagers in quarry plan protest - Daily Telegraph, April 26th 2008
Pentney: A village in fear - Lynn News, May 20th 2008
BBC Radio Norfolk interview and article by Jill Bennett
BBC TV Look East interview and article by Jenny Kirk

And finally, if you are a press agency, blogger, reporter, or are interested in keeping up to date with news and stories released by the Save Pentney website working in association with the Save Pentney Action Group, you can view our archive of press releases.

09/05/2008 Pentney Children: Stop playing games with our future
12/06/2008 Prolonged misery for Pentney
12/06/2008 Get a free Save pentney car sticker
12/06/2008 Save Pentney Action Group to host an Open Forum
12/06/2008 Pentney petition to the Prime Minister
01/07/2008 Pentney: A small village on the outskirts of Coventry
01/07/2008 Won't somebody please think of the children
04/07/2008 Where are the goalposts this week?
12/07/2008 Pentney village turns out in force to support campaign
08/09/2009 Quarry misery finally over for Pentney community