Gravel Extraction

The ancient Thorney Farm lies to the east of Thorney Lane. Post war it had become defunct, being badly degraded by a poorly restored gravel dig in the 1950s and by the coming of the M25. The farmer, Mr Smith found the land to be wet and provided poor pasture; it had gone from Grade I to Grade III agricultural land and so it was bought by Grundon's for a rubbish tip. The County Planning office indicated at the time that, on the completion of the tip and after restoration, the agreement with Grundon's was that the land should be incorporated into the Colne Valley Park. It seems that this agreement did not stand and in 1988 Grundons launched a plan for a national sports centre on the site including a 100 bed hotel. This plan did not succeed and a golf course was built. The latest proposal for this area is the construction of a massive hub station/terminal 6 for Heathrow.

Following the war, Tan House Farm on

the Colnbrook margin of Richings Park was dug for gravel by Costains. The area between South Iver sewage works and the old Main Drive then became a tip (Tan House Pits) which was poorly supervised, overfilled and contaminated with cadmium. The drainage was not restored stagnant water frequently contaminated the local streams and the Coln Brook. Bucks County Council restored a large portion of the area but a sizeable portion was retained by Costains who put in a proposal to build a 1 million square foot shopping/ sports/ entertainment complex in the site in 1989 to be called Richings Place. This was withdrawn when a proposal for a similar development by ARC at Wraysbury was comprehensively rejected by Mr Ridley the then Secretary of State for the Environment.

Following this, the area beyond the old Main Drive to Sutton Lane and the Colnbrook by-pass was opened up for a gravel dig and this continues today.

Lakeside Industrial Estate

The Lakeside Industrial Estate at Poyle was admitted to have been a mistake, perhaps before his time, by Mr Schoon the Bucks County Planning Officer when he was giving a talk on the area at the public launch of the Colne Valley Park in the Civic Centre in Uxbridge in 1983. This estate housed the site of the Grundon's rubbish baling plant, servicing their tip, before an industrial waste incinerator was built on the site in 1990. This incinerator, with a 100 ft chimney, was to also take hospital waste including radioactive waste. Today it is still operating, having recently been modernised and expanded. A much larger energy from waste incinerator was built on adjacent land despite huge local opposition.

Bardons

The Bardons stone crushing/recycling plant on the eastern side of Richings Park at Thorney crept in in the early