High Peak Spar, the operators of Smalldale Head Quarry at Bradwell in Derbyshire have won the right to mount a High Court challenge against a decision ordering them to stop selling limestone. The company say the ban will force the mine out of business. As a result there will be a judicial review of an enforcement notice issued by the Peak District National Park Authority and backed by the Government, which ordered them to stop the working and export of limestone.
The quarry has had planning permission since 1951 for the mining of lead and the mineral fluorspar, but the owners say the enterprise is only profitable by the additional sale of limestone that is extracted to reach the fluorspar. If stopped from selling limestone the business would not survive, the owners say.
In December 2005, the Peak Park Authority issued an enforcement notice alleging that the export of limestone was a breach of planning control and should cease. Following a public inquiry that decision was backed by the UK Government on the recommendation of a planning inspector. But High Peak Spar says that the inspector was wrong on a number of points and claims that, unusually for a case of this kind, there was no opposition to its operations from local residents at the public inquiry.
It hopes to win a ruling, at a full hearing later this year, forcing the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears to have the matter reconsidered.
Source: Sheffield Telegraph
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