Time to draw the line on Bovey Basin quarry expansion

It is a simple truth that all key minerals will run out. Oil and gas will run out. Ball clay will run out. The only real question is whether we change course with care today, or crash into the limits tomorrow.

Sibelco’s plan to expand here pretends the limit is somewhere else, or someone else’s problem. It is not. It is here, it is now, and it is ours to stop.

For decades, companies have treated Devon as if new pits are inevitable and local people are expected to accept the noise, dust and traffic as the price of doing business. Enough. You cannot keep digging toward the river and the town and call it progress. If expansion continues, what next: back gardens, school fields, the places where our kids play? There has to be a line that cannot be crossed. We are drawing that line today.

The future does not look like more pits

The future looks like using less virgin material, repairing what we have, and designing for reuse. It looks like UK producers innovating, not carving deeper scars into the places we love. It looks like communities who refuse to trade woodlands, health and peace of mind for another season of short-term extraction.

Sibelco cannot expand forever. Neither can any mining company. When a resource is finite, responsible leadership is to slow down, scale back and switch to better ways of making and building. That is the grown-up choice.

Why we say stop now

• Because the woodland and river are worth more standing than scraped away.

• Because our children’s lungs and our town’s calm are not a cost of production.

• Because once you choose expansion again, you make it easier to choose it again and again.

• Because a finite resource demands a finite footprint.

“What are we supposed to do, then?”

Here is our answer. We do not accept a story that says the only way to make things is the old way. We say yes to smarter materials, yes to repair and take-back, yes to reuse and precision manufacturing, yes to protecting what protects us: trees that hold water in storms, soils that filter pollution, and green spaces that keep us well. We say yes to a future where Devon is known for imagination, not extraction.

Draw the line with us

Saying stop is not anti-jobs or anti-business. It is pro-future. It is the choice to build a local economy that does not gamble with health and habitat. It is the courage to tell a powerful multinational: no more expansion here.

If you agree, stand with us in three ways:

• Donate today. Your gift pays for expert evidence, legal advice, leaflets and the big public push that decision-makers cannot ignore.

• Volunteer. Join the banner teams, help with research, bring your skills. Every hour strengthens the line we are drawing.

• Share this message. Talk to neighbours, friends, clubs and schools. The more of us who know the facts, the harder it is for anyone to look away.

Enough is enough

We are not asking for the impossible. We are asking for common sense. You cannot expand forever on a finite planet. You cannot keep chewing into a community’s green heart and tell us it is for our own good. You cannot shrug and say someone else will deal with the costs. That story ends here.

There is no planet B. There is only the choice in front of us: another pit, or another path. Choose the path. Choose the forest. Choose our river, our town and our children.

Donate if you can. Volunteer if you can. Speak up if you can. Together, we stop the quarry.