FEW people would envy the North Yorkshire County Council planning officer facing the monumental task of preparing a report on a controversial application by Tarmac Northern to excavate for sand and gravel near the historic Thornborough Henges, between Bedale and Ripon.

The issue has had a relentlessly high media profile, often accompanied by storms of rhetoric, ever since the company announced almost four years ago that it needed to secure the future of Nosterfield quarry by urgently finding a source of new supplies. It just happens that this latest example of the eternal conflict between national heritage and the needs of industry, with the added element of local job security, is being played out for all it is worth in North Yorkshire, but it could have been found anywhere in a rural area of County Durham, Cleveland or Teesdale.

The Tarmac application is due to go before the county council planning committee on July 19, but anyone with an ounce of common sense realises that a decision then is impossible. The most that can be expected is a deferment pending an inevitable site visit and receipt of much more information so that a truly considered judgement can be made later in the year. When the crunch does come, the question is whether even County Hall will be big enough to accommodate the numbers likely to attend.

Until then we can be sure that this war of words will continue to the wire. Campaigners who claim the support of leading archaeologists and academics will continue to portray Tarmac as an industrial vandal while the company, which has finally got its act together in replying to a torrent of criticism, will point to its past environmental record in the area and try to reassure the world that the henges themselves are under no immediate threat.

There does, however, appear to be room for legitimate questions about statements published by both sides.

The county council has had its share of controversial applications involving mineral extraction, but this promises to be the most difficult decision it has had to make for as long as anyone can remember.

So many people have a stake in this issue that there can be no room for error.