Can we trust them with yet more quarries?

‘Them’, being both the aggregates industry and also Staffordshire County Council as regulator and enforcer.

Perhaps a tad harsh and broad brush, some might say, but this week has been one of frustration around the whole quarrying thing. I learned a few weeks ago that a disused quarry known as Hopwas and Packington lies derelict even though it should have been restored to a natural habitat years ago… it just hasn’t been done.

It’s not been done because the operator(s) basically hasn’t bothered and, from what the County tell me, there aren’t the resouces, staff wise, in the enforcement unit to deal with the bureaucracy involved in enforcement. Apparently it’s all to do with mergers and legal collaborations and takeovers involving the three different quarry companies associated with the disused quarry.

To me it’s all ‘tosh’. And yes I am angry, very angry, because it winds me up where all our tax money goes… ‘not enough resources’ they say!! Enforcement of industry, in this case quarrying, is there partly to protect and benefit people and communities and partly to ensure safe and equitable behaviour. And here, yet again, it’s failing. It’s failing because the County are being beaten by a legal and bureacratic quagmire by commercial organisations, one from Mexico called Cemex, and others, Tarmac and RMC (now Cemex), who clearly don’t feel they need to meet their obligations.

We are being failed by weak and defeated enforcement from a County which spends an extraordinary amount of our tax money but cannot seem to meet its obligations to enforce if needed. They say there are limited powers in this case and that the biggest penalty is a £1000 fine for not complying with planning obligations. Apparently that fine isn’t limited to one shot though. I’m sure it would focus the mind a little more for our quarrying friends if the £1000 fine was levied a few times a week until restoration started. I’m told that’s possible but ‘the County hasn’t got the administrative resources’ to do that.

The quarry I’m talking about isn’t actually visible very easily. Whether it stays like it is or is restored as promised will not have a life changing effect on anyone locally… as far as I know.

It’s the principle. These same operators are looking for for new bigger, quarry operations which together could mean every week over 2500 thirty tonne quarry lorries thundering through the communities of Hints, Weeford, Comberford and Fisherwick. And that’s apart from issues of even bigger holes in the countryside and all that comes with that.

But even if all was fine, and it’s not, with new quarries should come the back stop of strong enforcement by the County Council to protect local people and communities by making sure industry does as it has promised to.

Today I’m ranting (and I apologise for that… it’s been one of those weeks) about a disused quarry which should have been restored. In the greater scheme of things it’s not Earth shattering but if the enforcement people can’t even deal with that what confidence should I, or we, have in future enforcement which could be needed on a much bigger scale? Today, here and now, a big fat none!

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