SAVE LONGSTONE EDGE

SAVE LONGSTONE EDGE

Public Meeting Expresses Dismay at On-Going Limestone Quarrying

24 April 2009

A public meeting attended by the Peak District National Park Authority and local MP Patrick McLoughlin has expressed the community's dismay that quarrying is continuing at Longstone Edge, despite a court ruling that should have curtailed it.

The meeting, held at Calver Village hall on 23 April, saw photographs of on-going limestone quarrying. (Click on the images below for larger photos, and visit here for more.)

Backdale April 2009

Limestone Crushing Operations, 23 April

Backdale April 2009

Excavating Limestone, 23 April

The meeting heard John Lomas of the Peak District National Park Authority say that they were monitoring the situation. However, Mr Lomas declined to say when or whether the Park Authority would take further action.

The recent Court of Appeal judgement confirmed that the quarry operators could sell no more than two tons of limestone to one ton of fluorspar, but also that most of the limestone moved to access the fluorspar had to be treated as waste. The 1952 planning permission demands that this waste limestone be disposed of in hollows in the ground.

Yet eye-witness accounts, supported by photographs shown at the meeting, suggest that considerable limestone quarrying is going on, raised doubts as to whether any fluorspar was being quarried, and showed to no waste limestone was being disposed of in accordance with the requirements of the permission.

The meeting expressed dismay at the failure of the Peak Park to put a halt to this ongoing destruction.