A HUGE sigh of relief has been felt across Haddiscoe as a raft of proposed sites for waste tips and quarries were revealed as being deemed unsuitable by planning chiefs.

A HUGE sigh of relief has been felt across Haddiscoe as a raft of proposed sites for waste tips and quarries were revealed as being deemed unsuitable by planning chiefs.

A shortlist of 41 so called minerals and waste sites thought to be suitable for future development have been drawn-up from a long list of more than 160.

However, a further 48 have been listed as having potential for development, providing alterations are made to the proposals.

It has taken more than a years' work for officials at Norfolk County Council to filter through the thousands of comments made by the public on the proposals in 2008, as part of their statutory duty to plan for where they can get sand and gravel from and put landfill sites.

Campaigns sprung up in many villages including Haddiscoe against proposed quarry and landfill sites on their doorsteps when an initial consultation was launched.

Rory Kelsey, chairman of the Stopit campaign, launched at Haddiscoe against a planned gravel pit, said they were cautiously optimistic having learned a site at the village had been deemed unsuitable.

The shortlist, which includes 16 new sites not in the original long list, is to be put to the county council's cabinet on Monday. They are due to ratify it to go out to another round of public consultation between October and December this year. The 16 new sites will then go through a further round of consultation in 2010.