A Peak District quarry company has today been told that it must apply to the Peak District National Park Authority for permission to restart sandstone quarry works.
Stancliffe Stone Co Ltd sought to reopen two quarries in Birchover, in reliance upon a planning permission granted for mineral extraction in 1952.
However, the High Court has held that, because the quarries lay dormant between 1982 and 1995, the authority would be entitled to impose strict conditions upon any future operations.
The quarries, Endcliffe and Lees Cross, are situated in an area of the national park that has been quarried for hundreds of years, producing a highly sought after sandstone used in the construction of fine buildings.
In February 1952, Stancliffe’s predecessor in title, Stanton Quarries Ltd, had received permission from the minister of local government and planning to work sandstone at six quarries, including Endcliffe and Lees Cross.
In seeking to reopen the two unused quarries, Stancliffe claimed that the minister had granted “a single indivisible planning permission” encompassing all the quarries, and that those at Endcliffe and Lees Cross should be considered not as a separate, dormant site, but as part of a larger “active mineral site”.
The company argued that it should therefore be entitled to reopen Endcliffe and Lees Cross in accordance with the conditions imposed by the 1952 permission.
However, Moore-Bick J has held that the 1952 permission was properly to be understood as “four separate planning permissions contained in a single document”.
The judge said: “There is nothing to suggest that the six quarries to which the application related formed part of a single unit for commercial or operational purposes.
“In some cases, a single scheme may require the development of several parcels of land, some of which may be quite widely separated from others. In this case, by contrast, there is no evidence of an integrated operation, as is evidenced by the fact that two of the sites were withdrawn because the applicant had no immediate plans to work them.”
He stated that this conclusion was supported by evidence that Stanton had submitted separate plans for each of the six sites, and that the permission had been granted in relation to four specific sites, each separately identified by reference to its own plan.
On this basis, the judge said, the quarries had correctly been classified as “dormant” under the Environment Act 1995, since “no substantial operations” had been carried out there between 1982 and 1995, and the authority was therefore entitled to impose conditions upon the proposed works.
Stancliffe Stone Co Ltd v Peak District National Park Authority Queen’s Bench Division (Moore-Bick J) 22 June 2004.
Timothy Straker QC and Robert White (instructed by Aaron & Partners, of Chester) appeared for the claimant; Timothy Corner QC and Andrew Fraser-Urquhart (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson, of Sheffield) appeared for the defendant.
References: EGi Legal News 23/6/04
