LONGSTONE EDGE SAVED

Countryside campaigners are celebrating a legal victory today which will help to save a beautiful landscape in the Peak District National Park being scarred by uncontrolled limestone quarrying.

In the latest stage of a long-running legal battle over Backdale Quarry on Longstone Edge, the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Peak District National Park Authority and the Government. The Court upheld their appeal against a controversial High Court decision by Justice Sullivan last year.

Controversy has centred on interpreting an old planning permission which determined how much limestone could be extracted whilst getting out the mineral fluorspar. A previous public inquiry ruled that this should be limited to a ratio of two parts of limestone to one part of fluorspar. This was then overturned last year in the High Court.

Since then the quarry operators MMC had resumed limestone quarrying with a vengeance, to the dismay of local residents, visitors and the Longstone Edge Coalition, a national group of campaigning organisations.

“This is fantastic news, and a huge relief,” said Andy Tickle, a Coalition spokesperson and Head of Planning at Friends of the Peak District. “We are really happy to see a more considered view has been taken about what the planning permission means, and that this iconic Peak District landscape is being saved.”

However, the Coalition warns that the situation may not be completely resolved yet.

“Although this is marvellous news, it isn’t necessarily the end of the story. We do not think that this welcome judgment alone is sufficient for quarrying to be controlled properly in the future. We’re now calling on DEFRA to buy out the planning permission completely. Only this will make Longstone Edge absolutely safe from future unscrupulous quarrying,” said Ruth Chambers, Acting Chief Executive of the Campaign for National Parks.

Meanwhile, the Coalition is demanding that MMC comply with the judgment and stop limestone quarrying immediately.

Backdale & Longstone Edge - Background information

The Backdale case went to the Court of Appeal last month. Four sets of barristers – for the Government, the Peak District National Authority, the landowner Bleaklow Industries, and the operator MMC Ltd – presented their cases. We were also present in Court, along with the Save Longstone Edge Group and the British Mountaineering Council.

The hearing was the culmination of a ten year campaign to halt the rate of limestone quarrying that is destroying Longstone Edge. An initial victory was won with the 2007 public inquiry ruling that the quarrying of limestone should be limited to a ratio of two parts of limestone to one part of fluorspar. A year later, we were extremely disappointed when Justice Sullivan quashed this decision at the High Court. We are particularly pleased that the Court of Appeal recognised the national significance of the case, partly because of the potential impact on the National Park.

National Test Case

Backdale Quarry is rightly seen as the national test case of all that is wrong with quarrying in National Parks. It attracted much media attention culminating in national TV and radio coverage in the run up to the Peak District National Park Authority's decision, with help from DEFRA (the government department with responsibility for environment, countryside and national parks), to serve a 'Stop Notice'. This form of planning order prevents all illegal activity on site, pending either a planning inquiry or a Court case. Illegal work at the site was stopped in January 2006 but work recommenced after the ruling in the High Court on Friday 7 March 2008 that the Backdale Public Inquiry decision was unsound.

Backdale Quarry has been worked as a quarry – removing limestone aggregate – since the late 1980s and the area forms part of a very large 'old mineral permission' (OMP) dating from 1952. However the permission was originally granted for extracting the rare vein minerals of fluorspar and barytes but it also allowed for any lead or other minerals (this would include limestone) to be extracted ‘in the course of’ extracting the fluorspar and barytes. This is because host rock limestone on either side of the vein has to be excavated to expose the vertical veins of fluorspar. However at Backdale, very little vein material remains yet an enormous limestone quarry has been created with many faces developed where there is no evidence of fluorspar veins.

Local environmental groups first became concerned in the late 1990s when a major UK quarrying company, RMC, took a lease on the site and started extracting large quantities of limestone. They also planned for a massive extension of the site which would have robbed the hillside of 12 million tonnes of limestone whilst searching out very minor reserves of fluorspar. Pressure by the National Park Authority and a strong local campaign embarrassed RMC into quitting the site in 1998 with the plan unimplemented.
Unfortunately in July 2003, the landowner (Bleaklow Industries Ltd) found a less scrupulous operator – Merrimans – to continue the quarrying operation. Since then they have extracted over 500,000 tonnes of limestone and only 11,500 tonnes of fluorspar. This is ridiculous for a permission aimed predominantly at fluorspar extraction but the impact on the landscape of Longstone Edge has been much more serious. The site was already scarred by RMC’s activities but the visual impact was doubled by the quarry extending westwards along the wooded scarp towards Hassop Common. Part of the eastern part of the Edge, which previously shielded views of the back faces of the quarry, was also cynically razed despite plans stating that this would be left as a screening feature.

The Friends, worked closely with local campaigners, the Save Longstone Edge Group (SLEG), and lobbied the National Park Authority to take decisive action and stop the working as soon as possible. In November 2004 the NPA served a ‘planning enforcement notice’ (PEN) but this was immediately appealed by Bleaklow and Merrimans, which allowed them to continue working until the issue had been settled by a public inquiry. This was set for September 2005 but was immediately adjourned to April 2006 on the grounds that insufficient time (3 days) had been allocated to hear the complex case. Given this delay, the NPA decided that working could not be allowed to continue and served the Stop Notice in January 2006. However, a legal challenge to the PEN was successful and the inquiry had to be cancelled. The Park issued a new PEN and Stop Notice to stop quarrying resuming and it was expected that the case would have to be settled in the High Court. See Press Release dated 27th April 2007.

In March 2008, Justice Sullivan ruled in the High Court that the Public Inquiry decision was unsound, following an appeal by the landowner (Bleaklow Industries) and operator (MMC Midland Ltd). The case was ‘remitted’ (sent back) to the Government department responsible for planning issues via the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG). This meant that the Government, and more specifically, the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) had to make a new inquiry decision, taking into account the Judge’s views. No new inquiry has taken place as the NPA and DCLG then appealed the Sullivan judgement to the Court of Appeal.

Previously, of course, the Inspector had sided with the views of the National Park Authority, ourselves and the Save Longstone Edge Group and ruled that any limestone removed in excess of a 2:1 ratio (limestone:fluorspar) was illegal. The Judge indicated that this was an error in law and that the amount of limestone removed is a primarily a commercial matter for the operator. Clearly that raised the spectre of a huge, mostly limestone, quarry being opened up at the eastern end of Longstone edge.

In our view, the Judge’s conclusions were based on a very simple reading of the original text of the permission which seemed to be at odds with recent decisions (for example a Ministerial dismissal of an appeal at a small fluorspar site above Bradwell, Smalldale Head, where the Secretary of State decided that no limestone could be sold off site) which have looked very carefully at the ‘fine print’ of old permissions and the circumstances surrounding them being granted – including the National Park context.

Happily, now the Court of Appeal (March 2009) has agreed with our views and this means the enforcement notice now takes effect immediately and the 2:1 ratio must be abided by. However, to avoid further damage, we are now calling for the planning permission to be revoked with compensation (a so called buy-out). This is the only way Longstone Edge and the local community can be free of the threat of further quarrying.

Picture top left: Backdale Quarry, Longstone Edge