ALMOST 50 acres of ancient woodland will be destroyed after a company won permission to expand a quarry near Whiteparish today.

Wiltshire Council's strategic planning committee approved the expansion of Brickworth Quarry at a meeting in Trowbridge.

Conservation charity The Woodland Trust said the site was home to numerous species of birds, bats and invertebrates, which could be permanently lost.

Quarry firm Raymond Brown said it planned to re-plant the woodland after the sand had been removed.

But Woodland Trust chief executive Beccy Speight said this showed "a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of ancient woodland and the hundreds of years it takes to evolve".

She said: "Evidence demonstrates that shifting soils and planting new saplings can never replace what is lost."

According to the quarry firm’s own ecological assessment, rare species at the site include grass snakes, common lizards, and slow worms, 26 breeding bird species, hazel dormice, and 13 species of bats.

A spokesman for Raymond Brown said the decision had secured the future of the quarry and the 15 people "whose livelihoods depend upon it" for the next nine years.

"We are delighted that members of the Strategic Planning Committee agreed with the planning officer and other experts that the proposals would safeguard important soils and transformation of the area from a conifer plantation to a broad-leaved woodland can begin.

"We look forward to continuing to work with the community and all our stakeholders to ensure the site is worked and restored as sensitively as possible."

The existing quarry sits between large areas of planted ancient woodland on the Longford Estate; Lowdens Copse to the east and Goose Eye Copse and Sandland Copse to the west.

The woodland soil is ancient, but the trees are not - having been cleared and replanted during in the 20th century.

The charity said with careful management, planted ancient woodland could be restored to its original state.

Council officers recommended the plans be approved because future development of the site had already been agreed in its minerals core strategy, meaning a refusal could have been easily overturned on appeal.

Ward councillor Richard Britton said afterwards: "We recognised we were in difficulty right from the outset, but with the number of people objecting to it I thought it should go to the committee for public airing."

Fred Westmoreland, the only south Wiltshire councillor on the committee, abstained.

He said he did not support the plans, but could not vote against them as developing the site was already council policy, a situation he described as "extremely frustrating".