Road Wars

Legislation Endorses Superquarrys

Squall 12, Spring 1996, pg. 41.

Hundreds of disused quarries could be brought back into use because emergency planning permission granted in 1947 is still in force.

The Interim Development Orders (IDOs) were granted at the end of the second world war to aid reconstruction of the country.

In 1991 the Government announced that these permissions had to be re-registered before March 1992 or they would become defunct.

Current planning legislation means that many of the original permissions would be rejected if applied for today. But as a result many owners of the quarries, some of which had never been worked, came up with new schemes to develop them.

Estimates from the Wildlife Trust put the number of such schemes in England and Wales at 652 - 87 of which are on areas of outstanding natural beauty and many others on Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

One example is a quarry in Newhey which closed in 1980 and is now to be massively extended. The quarry was worked for 120 years, but permission for its extension was granted in 1947 under an IDO. Since its closure the quarry, in the green belt around Rochdale, has returned to vegetation.

An application to build a hotel on the site was refused by a Department of the Environment inspector because it was an inappropriate development on green belt land.

The inspector said that should the Government overturn this decision, clauses should be put in the permission ensuring that mineral extraction should not resume.

But, thanks to the 1947 IDO, of which the Government has reminded everybody, an application is now going through to turn the old quarry into a super-quarry which would remove the hillside it is on and dig well below the water table.