QPA Event Spotlights Sustainability in Quarrying
Members of the Quarry Products Association set out to challenge
perceptions about the industry today (31 March) by demonstrating
its efforts to minimize and eradicate impacts on the environment
and local communities and to share best practice for the common
good.
The QPA Showcase 2004 took place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel
in London and was hosted by environmental broadcaster John Craven.
Principal guest was Baroness Barbara Young of Old Scone, Chief
Executive of the Environment Agency. Other guests included David
Miles, Chief Archaeologist with English Heritage.
The QPA Showcase has been developed to recognise excellence
and sustainability across seven key categories: health and safety;
restoration; biodiversity and geodiversity; community; heritage;
operational best practice and resource conservation. In addition
to the 28 “showcased” sites, the assessors have identified
a further 28 as “good practice”. Other than in the
restoration category, the “reward” for successful
sites lies in being featured in the show rather than in silverware.
Amongst the operations receiving accolades were two neighbouring
quarries from one village in Kent that have run side-by-side for
the QPA’s premier restoration award, The Cooper-Heyman Cup.
The award ultimately went to Canterbury-based Robert Brett &
Sons in partnership with the Ministry of Defence for their work
in creating a new water-based military training facility at Lydd
Ranges.
The Watermanship Lake is part of a wider military training area
used to hone the skills of troops who have served in theatres
ranging from Northern Ireland to Iraq. The brief to Brett involved
not just a specification for the creation of the facilities, but
some testing environmental requirements. The site is part of the
Dungeness Site of Special Scientific Interest and home to some
internationally important shingle vegetation, which required careful
monitoring throughout the quarrying process in case of any changes
in the water table.
In addition to some serious training, the lake is also available
for recreational use by army youth teams, cadets from all three
services and local community groups. A climbing tower, together
with changing rooms, completes the outstanding facilities that
are on offer.
The runner-up, which received an Award with Special Merit, was
Hanson Aggregates in partnership with the RSPB for the former
Lydd Quarry, which is now a spectacular nature reserve. The site
is made up of four separate areas, each worked and restored at
different times and with its own unique attraction to bird life.
The site has a history of gravel extraction stretching back to
the 1930s. The two parties started talking about the nature potential
of the quarried area long before work ended in the late 1990s.
Simon van der Byl, director general of the Quarry Products Association,
said: “We have been both impressed and delighted by the
response we have received from our members to the concept of showcasing
good practice. The challenge of sustainability is a major one
for an industry like quarrying, but the showcase demonstrates
evidence of genuine action at grass roots level.”
END
- An abbreviated list of Showcase sites
follows attached. More detailed information on each project
and digital photographs are available upon request.
- The Quarry Products Association is
the principal trade association representing the UK aggregates
industry. In England, its members produce over 90 per cent of
aggregates extracted - sand and gravel and crushed rock as well
as other non-aggregate minerals such as silica sand, agricultural
and industrial lime including limestone, chalk, clay and shale
for cement.
Showcase sites
Health and Safety
* The Brentford-based Day Group - introduction of a broadband
reversing device that - by hissing rather than bleeping - reduces
nuisance to neighbours
Operational Best Practice
* Tarmac Northern’s Swinden Quarry near Skipton in Yorkshire
- spent £16 million to move the plant into the quarry
and generally reduce impact
* Hanson Aggregates’ Ingleton Quarry near Via Carnfoth
in Lancashire - a major exercise to move the plant and reduce
associated impacts
* Foster Yeoman’s Torr Quarry near Shepton Mallett in
Somerset - a new water treatment regime including an external
reservoir with new habitats
* Aggregate Industries - an “Envoy” IT system that
shares environmental best practice throughout the company
* Aggregate Industries’ Holmescales Quarry near Kendal
in Cumbria - battling to protect great-crested newts that have
even invaded its offices
* Aggregate Industries’ Little Paxton Quarry in Cambridgeshire
- produced a best practice paper on quarry habitats for sand
martins
* Lafarge Aggregates - introduction of 44-tonne articulated
trucks as a means of reducing overall traffic impact
* Lafarge Aggregates - introduction of a self-discharge train
for delivery of aggregates
* Lafarge Aggregates - delivery of aggregates by canal between
a quarry in Nottinghamshire and a new wharf in West Yorkshire.
Heritage
* Hanson Aggregates’ Condover Quarry near Shrewsbury -
unearthed the remains of a mammoth extinct for 11,000 years
* Lafarge Aggregates’ Alrewas Quarry in Staffordshire
- unearthed a prehistoric woolly rhino
* Hanson Aggregates’ Shardlow Quarry in Derbyshire - unearthed
a bronze age log boat
* Brett Aggregates’ Marks Warren Quarry at Chadwell Heath
in East London - unearthed the remains of a famous World War
2 gunsite
Community
* Aggregate Industries’ Croy Quarry in North Lanarkshire
- worked with the local community to develop a mutually agreed
long term restoration scheme
* Aggregate Industries’ Duntilland Quarry near Shotts
in Lanarkshire - canteen now run by people with learning disabilities
* Hanson Aggregates’ Coldstones Quarry near Pateley Bridge
in North Yorkshire - a range of community and education initiatives
* Hanson Aggregates - development of the Material World educational
resource, now used across the country
Biodiversity and Geodiversity
* Hanson Aggregates in partnership with the RSPB, Needingworth
Quarry in Cambridgeshire - putting wetland and wildlife back
into an area of the Fens drained over a period of 350 years
* Lafarge Aggregates in partnership with English Nature, Thrislington
Quarry in County Durham - translocation of turves of limestone
grassland from an area to be quarried to a nature reserve
* WBB Minerals and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Messingham Nature
Reserve in North Lincolnshire - a unique series of habitats
created by quarrying for silica sand
* Lafarge Aggregates and Plantlife (conservation group), Armstrong
Quarry near Worksop in Nottinghamshire - research to ensure
the survival of the rare flamingo moss.
Resource Conservation
* Tarmac Recycling in Partnership with British Waterways - development
of an 100 per cent recycled alternative for resurfacing canal
towpaths
* RMC Aggregates’ (Eastern) Attenborough Quarry, near
Nottingham - a series of energy saving initiatives
* Aggregates Industries - development of a company-wide sustainability
report
* Lafarge Aggregates and the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust - use
of a windpump to supply water to a threatened reedbed in Brandon
Restoration
Showcases
* Robert Brett & Sons and the Ministry of Defence - creation
of water-based training facilities for the Army at Lydd Ranges
in Kent ( winner of the Cooper-Heyman Cup)
* Hanson Aggregates and the RSPB - creation of a bird reserve
from the former Lydd Quarry in Kent (winner of an award with
special merit)
Awards
Four other sites received restoration awards:
* Lafarge Aggregates, Harrycroft Quarry near Worksop in Nottinghamshire
- restored farmland
* New Milton Sand & Ballast and Southern Water - siting
of a waste water treatment plant within a former quarry
* Hanson Aggregates, Hardbank Quarry, near Hayton in Cumbria
- restored farmland
* Aggregates Industries, Fledmyre Quarry near Forfar - land
restored for nature.
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