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Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter today. It may seem that, whenever a planning application comes up, there are always people with a local interest who say that it should not go ahead. It was described by the late Nicholas Ridley as the NIMBY syndrome--not in my backyard. I hope to show that, although, obviously, we do not want a new quarry to open, it is not a matter just of the NIMBY syndrome.
Longstone Edge is a beautiful hill ridge in the heart of the Peak district national park, which is unlike any other national park in the United Kingdom because no other has so much local authority involvement, or covers the region of so many local authorities. Longstone Edge is criss-crossed by delightful paths and is easily seen from surrounding villages. It also lies in direct view of the most popular walks along Froggatt Edge, Calver and Baslow Edge. That is why people have called on me to ask the Government to call the application in, if it is at all possible.
The Peak district is within an hour's travelling distance of some 15 million people. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that it is the lungs of England. It lies within an hour's drive of Manchester, almost in the backyard of Sheffield and not far from the west midlands conurbation. It attracts many visitors annually. It is estimated that, last year, some 22 million day visits were made to the national park. It has outstanding natural beauty.
I do not want to leave the Minister with the view that this is a matter just of NIMBYism, because the Peak district accepts that quarrying is an important activity in the national park. It is estimated that, last year, some 7 million tonnes of limestone were quarried from the national park, and quarrying represents about 1,000 jobs overall there, so we do not take the approach that no quarrying should take place in the national park.
I have been in correspondence with the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning on the matter. During the summer, he responded to me in some lengthy correspondence, for which I am grateful and which set out some of the earlier considerations that had to be taken into account. However, I was sorry to read a letter from the Minister dated 19 September, which stated:
I have received many letters on the matter. In response to the Minister's view that the Secretary of State's intervention was unwarranted, one letter stated:
I am not the only one who is concerned about the issue. It is not party political. All the people concerned with the national park--the local authority and parish council representatives, as well as the Secretary of State's own appointees--are concerned not just about this individual case, but about the wider context in which it has to be judged.
I was one of those who were pleased when the Environment Act 1995 was passed. It went through the House under a Conservative Government without a Division, because most of it was generally welcomed as a move in the right direction on this issue.
I am the first to accept that it is not easy to deal with the issue that I am raising because it concerns some old mineral rights. Schedules 13 and 14 to the Act cover the review and updating of old mineral planning permissions. The initial review is concerned with mineral sites where the main or only planning permission was granted between 1948 and 1982. Schedule 14 provides for the periodic review--every 15 years--of all mineral sites. That review involves a submission for approval of modern operating conditions, covering a wide range of environmental matters, together with plans for the working and restoration of the site.
Longstone Edge is a good case, in particular the area known as Backdale quarry. The site lies about 5 km from the centre of Bakewell, in the heart of the national park, which was designated in 1951 for its valued characteristics.
Longstone Edge is extensively covered by several planning permissions, principally for the extraction of vein minerals by opencast and underground mining methods. They were issued in 1949, 1951, 1952, 1971, 1977 and 1978. The veins have been extensively worked in the form of substantial underground workings and surface workings going down a few metres only. That work has been in parts of the site where the veins have been known to exist and has not resulted in substantial removal of limestone. The underground workings have resulted in significant subsidence of some of the surface, so that deep trenches now exist along large stretches of the Edge.
The Backdale area of Longstone Edge has an extremely complex site history, arising primarily from a single ministerial consent for underground, opencast and surface working of vein minerals granted on 24 April 1952. In 1989, it was noted that limestone was being removed and processed at a crushing and screening plant installed at Backdale. The operator claims that at the time the removal of limestone was permitted in accordance with the terms of the permission issued in 1952.
In July 1996, RMC confirmed that long-term development of the Backdale area was being considered in the context of the review of permissions in accordance with the provisions of the Environment Act 1995. However, no working, landscaping or restoration details have been submitted by the operator for the remainder of the area--some 143 hectares. We are talking about a huge area of land. The operator claims that the provisions of the Environment Act 1995 allow for phased submissions, but that is disputed by the mineral planning authority. That highlights one of the many problems with the legislation.
One of the other problems is the time in which the MPA has to respond to applications made to it. That is a particular problem when dealing with an area of such a size. I would be the first to say that planning authorities should try to turn applications round quickly, but when we are talking about a planning application not for a building but for a permission that could last for some 45 years, more time is needed to ensure that the MPA makes the correct judgment.
The authority considers that limestone extraction on the scale proposed in the Environment Act scheme was not envisaged by the Minister in 1952 and substantially exceeds the terms of the Minister's consent. This problem comes up time and again. In 1952 when the vein extraction was granted, it was for the extraction of minerals 1 m to 2 m from ground level. We are now talking about a wholly different application from what was initially envisaged.
I know that the Minister will probably say that the Peak park, or the MPA, can place certain restrictions on RMC, make certain recommendations or go to court, but RMC would also be able to take the matter to court. If RMC won, the Peak national park might have to pay the compensation, but it does not have the money to do so and therefore has to consider very carefully before entering into any legal process because of the possible drain on its resources. The problem is not one for a local authority to take care of. The Peak national park was originally set up because of the national significance of the area.
Several people have written to me to make representations about the proposed quarry. The Government talk regularly about an integrated transport policy, so I hope that the Minister will consider the problems of transporting goods from the proposed site. The roads being considered for access to the quarry are wholly unsuitable for lorries.
The other day, Sheffield council issued a statement saying that if the proposal was to go ahead, it would want a rail link to be used. I shall be interested to see Sheffield council's plans for a railhead in Backdale quarry, because it will first have to build a railway. That might be difficult, not least in view of the time involved.
I received a letter from the Curbar, Calver and Froggatt Women's Institute, which states:
I do not write to the Minister on every controversial planning matter and say that it must be called in. The records at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions will show that it is very rare that I have said that. However, we are talking about a huge application beyond anything that I have dealt with before in my constituency. It is in the heart of the national park. I do not agree with every decision that the park has taken, and I have been critical of it in the past. I was pleased when parish council representatives were allowed to serve on the park authority, so that an elected element was included. I shall not go over the arguments, but I welcome the changes that have been made.
A bizarre aspect of the problem was highlighted by Julian Tippett of Stoney Middleton. He wrote to me:
"You will by now have received my reply to your earlier letter, dated 30 August, which I trust you found helpful."
Indeed it was. The letter then goes on:
"As my letter indicated, the main responsibility for this type of development rests in the first instance with the Peak District National Park Authority, as the mineral planning authority. The Secretary of State is generally very reluctant to interfere with the jurisdiction of local planning authorities and will normally only intervene if the matters concerned are of more than local importance. Whilst it is clear that the issues in this case are of considerable importance to local residents, they seem nevertheless to be essentially of local significance and the Secretary of State's intervention in this instance would therefore seem to be unwarranted."
That was met with a fair amount of disbelief, to put it mildly, by my constituents. The very fact that the site lies in the heart of a national park, which was designated because of its natural beauty and is an area that people visit, means that it is of national, not just local, significance.
"This is an extraordinary position to take. Firstly, this proposed development is in the heart of the National Park. This area attracts a vast number of tourists annually. The majority of them do not visit to see a quarry the size of Bakewell disfiguring a prominent skyline. The fact that the development is in a National Park surely lends the issue more than local significance. If it does not, the number of tourists who flood the area suggests that there might well be more than a local interest in the careful preservation of the essential character of the area."
That is one of the many letters that I received along similar lines once I had sent the Minister's letter to constituents.
"The roads being used to gain access to and from the mining site are not in good condition. Hassop Road and Froggatt Road in particular are not in any fit state for heavy vehicle use.
3 Dec 1997 : Column 325
The traffic on the A623 is already very heavy, and many fatal and near fatal accidents are occurring, particularly in Stoney Middleton and Baslow.
The vehicles used for transport, particularly when empty, also constitute noise pollution and . . . the traffic starts before 5 am now".
The road that many of those vehicles would take out of Froggatt to Sheffield passes very close to some houses, which would cause considerable damage.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will accept that this is not a case of being anti-quarry or against the extraction of minerals. We acknowledge that that already happens in the park. However, we are now talking about a new huge quarry being opened. The Minister may say that it is not really new if there has been extraction there since 1952, but the kind of extraction being proposed by RMC is new. That is one of the reasons why I believe that the application merits being called in.
"it is bizarre that a consent given in 1952 can rule what is done 45 years later"
without a planning inquiry of the kind that I think necessary for this application. I hope that the Minister will be able to deal with some of the points that I have raised.
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