The decision to reject plans for a huge new park in Cranford has been met with disappointment by a local residents' group.
Formal Investments' bid to extract 3m cubic metres of gravel from below Rectory Farm and create a 110-acre landscaped park was turned down by Hounslow Council in April - more than two years after its application was first submitted.
Heston Residents' Association has questioned the decision and asked if anything will ever be done with the disused farmland, bordering Bath Road and The Parkway, which it says has been plagued by fly-tipping and drug-dealing in recent years.
The group's chairman David Blackett called the proposal "highly imaginative and exciting", and said it had gained "considerable support" from people living near the site.
"In sympathizing with Formal Investments managing director Nick King, I would urge both him and his project team not to mothball their dream," he added in a letter to the Hounslow Chronicle.
Mr Blackett also said the site was no longer viable for farming and could not be built on as it is green belt land.
The council rejected the plans on a number of grounds, including that they represented "inappropriate development" of green belt land and there was "insufficient information" to show neighbours would not be affected by noise and dust.
But Mr Blackett said a new park was a perfectly good use for green belt land and he believed the method of 'sealed top down construction' would keep noise and dust to a minimum, as the developer claimed.
He said he had seen a number of proposals for the extraction of gravel and/or development of the site refused over the last 30 years but felt the latest plans addressed many of the stumbling blocks for previous applications.
Under Formal Investments' plans, the gravel would have been extracted section by section, allowing most of the site to remain open to the public during the work, which it was estimated would take 15-20 years.
The company, which already owns the land, has yet to announce whether it plans to appeal the council's decision.
