Hamble residents are protesting in Winchester once again as Cemex continues its fight to open a controversial quarry in the village.

“No quarry for Hamble” was the slogan of Hamble residents who came to protest against Cemex’s application to excavate 250,000 tons of sand and gravel at the former Hamble Airfield in the quiet village.

Representing the village, dozens of people, including secondary school children, drove to the Hampshire County Council offices where the second and final part of the public inquiry is taking place over the next three days.

During the proceedings, villagers, represented in the case as Rule 6 Party, have defended their fight against macro development, insisting that Hamble is not the right place for a quarry and, if carried out, it would “destroy” the village.

More than 20 residents have already raised their concerns and objections to planning inspector Steve Normington, including children, GP consultants, business owners, gold medallists, headteachers, MPs and district and county councillors.

Ted Hill, managing director of Wetwheels and residents of the village, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service how the quarry would affect his life and that of the entire town.

“Hamble is a wrong place for a quarry by any measure. Firstly, they want to build a quarry next to a school. That clearly is wrong. That’s going to impact the mental well-being and the education of those children. Their physical health because of the lots of dust and contamination, which is proven to me to be harmful to this plan.”

Mr Hill mentioned that the quarry will also impact the environment due to the loss of trees, but he added that the biggest concern is about traffic.

“Hamble is a one way in, one way out; we live on a peninsula. So you’ve got all these heavy vehicles going up and down the road every day. That’s a potential impact on pedestrians and, especially, for primary and secondary children. And of course on traffic as well.

“Everyone who lives in Hamble realises how difficult life is going to be. I can take half an hour sometimes to get out of Hamble on a good day.”

“There is no good thing about having a quarry in Hamble”.

Regarding the Hampshire County Council’s position to drop its objections and agree that planning permission should be granted on the basis that the reasons for the refusals were overcome, he said the community was in “shock”.

“We wanted to know why they made that decision at the last moment. It came as a complete surprise to everyone. We expected that everyone would raise their objections as they had raised previously and originally. It was a complete turnaround. Nothing has been put down to mitigate the problems.

“Everyone was shocked; even the MPs said they did not know about it. So if the conservative councillors aren’t even talking to their own about what is going on behind the closed doors, you can draw your own conclusions.”

Despite the council “abandoning” residents, as MP Paul Homes said on a Facebook post after the first day of the appeal, residents have not lost hope and continue to fight against the multinational Mexican company to keep their village free of a quarry.

“There’s always hope. The people who represent the community possess an amazing wealth of knowledge, experience, and time they invest in the village. But in the end, it will be up to the inspector to ensure that it is not just people complaining. There is a real intellectual and educational input into why the quarry should be there.”

“People are still here today, still protesting and still throwing the flag.”

A statement from Cemex previously said it was “confident the site can be operated without any significant adverse effects”.

The public inquiry is streamed on the county council’s YouTube page.