Families living in West Hyde hope a company will scrap plans to create a quarry on Green Belt land after plans were rejected for a second time.

Villagers travelled to County Hall in Hertford on Thursday and celebrated when the development control committee threw out plans to extract gravel and sand from Pynesfield.

HS2 Ltd could start work on the huge construction compound for the Chiltern Tunnel early next year.

And villagers believe this could see the plans for a quarry abandoned.

Harleyford Aggregates had insisted it would be able to extract the materials from the site before HS2 needed it.

Just one of the 12 councillors supported the scheme.

David Crofts, of Old Uxbridge Road, said: “We were absolutely delighted and if we are honest, a little bit surprised, we all thought it would be approved.

“The previous application had machinery in it which would have been used to wash the gravel. But that had been taken out and therefore some of the objections of the planning inspector had been removed.

“There would have been a significant increase from 126 lorries using the A412 to 200 lorries using it each day. And there would have been a huge hole in a beautiful area.

"Unless HS2 is cancelled, I think that will be it".

Cllr Ann Shaw, leader of Three Rivers District Council, said: “It would have been such a small amount of gravel but it would have absolutely destroyed the field and the view across the rest of the valley.

“We didn’t think the traffic had been given enough consideration and there was no sign of how it was going to be controlled.

“The site was not even on the list of sites which Hertfordshire County Council said were suitable for gravel extraction.

“There was nothing about how they were going to prevent the area from flooding in the future and how they were going to prevent damage to the aquifer.”

Hertfordshire County Council threw out the original plans in January 2014.

The sand and gravel supplier appealed this decision, and a public inquiry was ordered in September 2014.

Concerns over the effect the proposals would have had on the groundwater saw the appeal rejected by the planning inspector.

The planning inspector who heard the hearing, Jonathan King, ruled: "I believe that the potential exists for groundwater to be polluted or contaminated by any of the routes identified by the Environment Agency.

"The greatest risk would appear to come from the disturbance of the pre-existing waste within the channel and any associated excavation of sand and gravel."

Mr King also ruled the quarry would be an "inappropriate development".