Councillors in St Albans are to formally object to plans for a quarry on the site of the former Hatfield Aerodrome, amid mounting pollution concerns.

Brett Aggregates are seeking to extract up to eight million tonnes of sand and gravel from the former aerodrome site, off Hatfield Road.

But there are concerns that quarrying could impact on the contamination of water below ground due to the ‘bromate plume’ that flows close-by.

St Albans City and District Council has already expressed “serious concerns” about the plans, which will be determined by Hertfordshire County Council.

But after considering further information on Tuesday (March 9), a meeting of the council’s planning referrals committee agreed to send a formal objection to the plans to the county council.

At that meeting, councillors heard that the ‘bromate plume’ – which has been attributed to a leak from a former chemical works in Sandridge – was closer to the site than previously thought.

Cllr Katherine Gardner said the contamination was recognised internationally, as ‘the most serious contamination in Europe’  – and was being studied ‘as a example of how not to do things’.

She said the committee was being asked to consider the proposal by the county council on data that was “woefully out of date”.

She said it posed risks not only to existing residents, but to future generations too.

Speaking at the meeting, she said: “We are potentially seeking, by agreeing to this recommendation, to condemning future generations of our local people to poisonous drinking water, insufficient drinking water and to a quarry that absolutely nobody in the local area wants.

“And we are being asked to do this on out of date data – data  we cant see being updated.”

At the meeting officers had recommended that the committee "advise the county council that they had no objections".

But councillors went against that advice and instead decided to lodge a formal objection.

That objection will note that the council has previously expressed concerns about the quarry proposal.

It will say that given a lack of sufficient information provided by the county council , they now considered this to be  a formal objection.

It is likely to say that the council consider the information supplied by the county council to enable the district council to reach a conclusion in the consultation is “inadequate and regrettable”.