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Quarry fight is a national issue
PEAK District National Park leaders are keeping up pressure for Government support in their efforts to end harmful quarrying on Longstone Edge, near Bakewell.
National Park Authority chair Tony Hams told a public meeting of nearly 200 people in Calver that a delegation will be briefing recently-appointed rural affairs minister Barry Gardiner MP on October 16.
"It's clear that there's still a huge amount of public concern locally about quarrying problems on Longstone Edge," said Mr Hams.
West Derbyshire MP Patrick McLoughlin said he was glad National Park leaders were building a relationship with the new rural affairs minister, after achieving extra financial help from his predecessor Jim Knight.
He found it "staggering" that two public inquiries have been put off, and hoped the planning inspectorate would now recognise the case's national significance in terms of the impact of old quarrying permissions on the special landscapes of National Parks.
Some residents believed the potentially heavy cost of compensation for revoking the planning permission should be borne by the Government.
The problems centre on alleged unlawful operations at Backdale quarry, because although it represents only part of the possible quarrying area of Longstone Edge, decisions made on Backdale could affect other sites too.
A stop notice was served on Backdale's operations in January, because in the Authority's view, they went beyond the scope of the 1952 planning permission. Large-scale limestone extraction was doing irreparable harm, believed the Authority, and the planning permission was primarily for the vein minerals of fluorspar and barytes.
That stop notice was nullified by a legal technicality in March, which meant that an April public inquiry was cancelled, another stop notice was served in May, and a date set for a new public inquiry, starting February 13.
Meanwhile in July, the operators, MMC Mineral Processing, started quarrying nearby Wager's Flat, hitherto an untouched field, which is covered by the same 1952 planning permission. So far, these operations appear to have been lawful, but the Authority is monitoring it closely.
news@buxtonadvertiser.co.uk
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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