Campaigners are celebrating after the Lake District National Park Authority ruled that it would not determine a controversial planning application to review old mineral permissions at Clints Crags.
The Lake District National Park Authority decided that:
- The quarrying depth granted by the original planning permission in 1966 has already been reached and therefore there is no mineral left in the site that can be worked under this permission;
- The 1974 planning permission was not started so has expired;
- The application involves development beyond the old site boundaries where new development would require a modern planning permission.
“We are pleased that the Lake District National Park has refused to determine this application,” said David Roberts, chair of the Clints Quarry Action Group. “This is a protected landscape with two SSSIs (Site of Special Scientific Interest), and SAC (Special Area of Conservation) and a conservation area directly impacted, not to mention the irreparable damage quarrying would cause to the flora and fauna abundant on Clints Crags, one of Alfred Wainwright’s favourite outlying fells.
“The Lake District National Park World Heritage Site needs us all to be its custodians. Our Cumbrian visitor economy depends on our land, its beauty and its wildlife habitats and we owe it to the next generation to do all we can do to help it, not just survive, but thrive.
“But this is not the end of our work. The applicant may well challenge this decision. In order to stop this process once and for all, we urge the Lake District National Park Authority to take a proactive approach and issue a prohibition order removing the old mineral permission once and for all.
“National policy says that mineral working should only be permitted to take place in national parks in exceptional circumstances, and the Mineral Product Association, the trade body that represents much of the mineral industry, agrees with this. There are no exceptional circumstances that make the production of crushed rock more important than the nationally and internationally designated landscape.”
The Clints Quarry Action Group has launched a website, www.clintscrags.co.uk, and a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Clints.Crags.
People who want to join the campaign to stop the quarry are asked to like the Facebook page, share it and write a letter urging The Lake District National Park Authority to issue a prohibition order at: [email protected]
