A QUESTION to readers concerning the White Horse chalk quarry extension. What happens next? A few years ago the cement works in Westbury was granted permission to extend the chalk extraction quarry by the side of the Westbury White Horse. A 10-acre field had its topsoil removed and ramped to three sides of the field, so giving access to the chalk underneath.

What I would like to know is now that the cement company and whoever owns it no longer has a use for it, when will it be returned to how it was before, a green field? Or are they holding onto it so that one day in the future it will reopen when some of the other quarries get old and prices rise? Does anyone know?

Leave the chimney, it’s a landmark now, like the White Horse, (Old Grey Mare now); you know where you are when you see it. Also the old hospital, if I was one of the older residents of Westbury (which I am) I would be up in arms. Many people lost a lot of sweat collecting for it. They also gave a considerable amount of their wages to get it built.

In those day money was not that plentiful and they were given little praise for the effort that they put - others had plenty of praise. Is it true that the deeds have been lost? Is that a connivance or not? With so many of us (me for one) getting old we need places like that, convert it to fit today’s use. If it is sold will the people of Westbury and the villages around be allowed to have a say in how the money is to be spent, or is it behind closed doors?

E J Stokes, Church Road, Bratton, Westbury