RESIDENTS fear higher levels of noise, dust and traffic under a controversial decision to extract more gravel at sites in Oxfordshire.

Campaigners said the move by Oxfordshire County Council to concentrate digging at existing sites rather than add new ones would “devastate” the countryside.

Most digging will happen in the Lower Windrush and Eynsham areas to meet Government targets demanding the county’s extraction rises 20 per cent to 2.1 million tonnes a year.

The council is opposing the move which would provide gravel and sand for major projects such as road building.

About 90 per cent of the county’s gravel comes from the area, with other sites in Cassington, Yarnton, Radley, Sutton Courtenay and Caversham.

The council rejected using sites including Clanfield, Bampton, Stanton Harcourt, Clifton Hampden, Wittenham, Benson, Shillingford, Warborough and Cholsey.

Residents in those areas fought a high-profile campaign against the move.

Julie Hankey, chairman of Outrage (Oxfordshire Upper Thames Residents Against Gravel Extraction), hit out.

She said: “The area has been devastated. These areas have been dug too long.

“Residents have had enough. We hear about reedbeds and restoration. But we see the loss of existing biodiversity and landscape-scale destruction.”

It comes after extraction firm Hanson triumphed over the council at a planning inquiry which ruled it can extract sand and gravel from Stonehenge Farm, between Northmoor and Standlake, near Witney.

Ms Hankey said: “The outcome of the appeal will give yet more of what little is left of the Lower Windrush valley to a gravel operator.”

Eynsham county councillor Charles Mathew branded the target ‘ridiculous’.

He said: “There is no reason why the county council should be rushing ahead with this.

“It is rather like ordering beer before you know how many people are coming to the party.

“You cannot go on destroying west Oxfordshire in the way they have been in the past.

“I have talked to David Cameron about this. I cannot see why Oxfordshire should be spoilt to build office blocks in Reading.”

Council infrastructure chief Ian Hudspeth has written to the Government calling for the target to be cut as it was drawn up by the South East England Regional Assembly, which the Coalition abolished.

An officers’ report said the option chosen by the county was judged the best way to minimise extraction’s impact.