Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) South Yorkshire
protecting the countryside - for the nation, for the future

Quarrying blights our landscapes

It is the misfortune of our area to be rich in minerals and to lose part of its landscape every year to motorway foundations, house-building, power stations and the chemical industry - in Europe as well as Britain.

Our beautiful countryside is consequently blighted by huge scars of rock and bare earth, and by the industrial side effects of quarrying - dust, noisy machinery, dirty buildings and lorries which tear up road verges and destroy the peace - and safety - of country lanes and local villages.

Amazingly the problem is greatest in the Peak District where National Park status blatantly fails to protect the landscape. Minerals permissions granted half a century ago cover not only existing quarries but huge tracts of land as yet untouched. Moreover, these old permissions make no demands for backfilling or landscaping at the end of quarrying operations. Although the National Park Authority has some powers to withdraw old permissions, the associated compensation costs usually make this impossible and the Authority has adopted the pragmatic approach of trading modern permissions, hedged with restrictions, in exchange for old, open-ended permissions.

CPRE believes that no quarrying should be allowed in the National Park save in very exceptional circumstances and we make our views clear whenever a quarry application for a new or extended quarry is being considered. For example there has been a major battle to prevent the re-opening of the dormant Endcliffe and Lees Cross quarries on Stanton Moor. The fight continues as campaign groups vow to defend this historic landscape from the quarrying onslaught.

The problem is by no means confined to the Peak District National Park and in South Yorkshire, the old permission for sand and gravel at Dale Pit Quarry encroaches over the boundary of Hatfield Moor SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) which is also a European Special Protection Area (SPA) because of the presence of the rare bird, the Nightjar. As well as the visual effects of the quarry, there are concerns about the impact on water quality and nature conservation.

We will continue to oppose the principle of quarrying in areas which should be protected by National Park, SSSI, SPA, SAC or Green Belt status, but we have little chance of making much impact unless national policy on old permissions is changed. We have now made this a campaign objective and in January 2003 the Branch appointed Nick Denton as Researcher for our 'Old Minerals Permissions' Project. Case study investigations have concentrated on the Peak District National Park which is affected by more old minerals permissions than any other National Park.

Two new reports written jointly by CNP (*Campaign for National Parks) and Friends of the Peak District which address the legacy of Old Mineral Permissions in the English National Parks have now been produced. Hard copies of the technical report are now sold out due to high demand, but a summary of the report entitled 'Ticking Timebombs' is available online, from CNP.

Although deep coal mining in the South Yorkshire area has largely collapsed, there is still a threat to Green Belt and greenfield land from opencast operations which can be very intrusive. We oppose such extraction on both landscape and amenity grounds and because of the consequent effect of burning fossil fuels for climate change.

* prior to June 2008 known as Council for National Parks
Picture top left: Backdale Quarry