An objector to a rubble recycling plant at a quarry in Carmarthenshire has urged councillors to let villagers “live the lives we chose to live in peace”.

Sean Kirwan, of Llandybie, asked the county council’s planning committee to reject the recycling plant application for the disused Cilyrychen quarry nearby.

A company, Dolawen Cyf, wants to crush and process material brought to the site and also remove materials deposited at two areas of the quarry. It has indicated that the total amount of material both imported and removed from the quarry would not exceed 50,000 tonnes per year.

The plans were recommended for approval by council planning officers but the committee was told at a meeting on August 15 that the Welsh Government had, just two days previously, informed the council that it couldn’t make a formal decision without prior ministerial approval.

Addressing councillors, Mr Kirwan said he’d moved to the area seven years ago and loved its peace and quiet and the beauty of the Carmarthenshire landscape. He said it was a relief when a cement works at the former quarry ceased operations and that people in Llandybie had reacted in “horror and disbelief” when the quarry recycling plant plan was made public. A campaign group was formed and a petition of objection with 2,073 signatures was collected.

Mr Kiwan feared a “huge increase” in truck movements, noise, dust and pollution, and was worried about potential impacts on Llandybie Primary School given its proximity to the A483 – the road vehicles would use to access the quarry.

He claimed the planning report recommending approval “totally neglects” the concerns of residents. “Please save our village and let us live the lives we chose to live in peace,” he said.

Another objector, Ruth Davies, said nature had transformed the former quarry over the last 25 years and that ecologists commissioned by the applicant had identified “at least six priority habitats”. She asked councillors what level of negative impacts they would consider acceptable, especially given that the council has declared a nature emergency.

She also asked why mobile aggregate crushers which would be brought to the planned recycling plant couldn’t be taken instead to the source of the imported material. “Even though it may take considerable courage, please refuse the application,” she said.

Llandybie councillor Dai Nicholas said he felt council highways officers had not considered the impact of truck movements on smaller roads leading towards the quarry site, road surface wear and tear, and road and pedestrian safety. Cllr Nicholas said there would be no jobs or “fiscal return” for the community if the operation went ahead, and that people living near the quarry had become used to a way of life without industry. “We are now suddenly imposing industry on an area that has become used to not having industry,” he said.

An agent on behalf of the applicant said the plans had been thoroughly examined and recommended for approval, and that no statutory consultees had objected. The planning officer report, he added, was “transparent, balanced and well-informed”, with key issues “comprehensively dealt with”. He said the application “accords with the spirit of local and national planning policy”, that net biodiversity gain could be secured, and that dust, noise and vibration impacts could be mitigated.

Cllrs Terry Davies, Steve Williams and John James expressed misgivings about the application and worried they wouldn’t be able to make an informed decision. Cllrs Ken Howell and Jean Lewis reommended a site visit should take place, and this proposal was formally carried in a vote.

The debate continued with a planning officer addressing noise impact concerns and adding that a mobile crusher at the site would need a separate environmental permit. A highways officer said the volume of material processed at the former quarry would likely be well below the 50,000-tonne per year maximum and that on average he envisaged around eight HGV movements per day, far fewer than when quarrying had taken place.

Dolawen Cyf plans to operate the site six days a week, with no work on Sundays or bank holidays. The council’s planning department has recommended 44 conditions if approval is given to mitigate community and ecological impacts. The application will come back before the committee following the site visit.

Julie Morgan, whose Penpound Lane home backs onto the quarry, said she was pleased that a site visit would take place as councillors would be able to visualise the distance between her garden and where she said mobile crushers would operate. She said “everything used to be plastered with dust” when previous operations took place there.