Restoration

Performance indicators

• Land being quarried: 14,309 hectares. Proportion of UK land area covered by primary aggregates extraction (total industry estimate extrapolated from QPA survey results: 0.11%)
• Land restored: 868 hectares
• Land prepared for quarrying by soil removal: 434 hectares
• Ratio of land restored, to land prepared for quarrying by soil removal: 2.0

Current position

The measurement of land being quarried is an indicator that we have developed so that we can track the area accounted for by quarrying year-to-year. The data collected, when extrapolated to the whole of the UK primary aggregates sector, produces an area of extraction equivalent to 0.11 per cent of the UK land area. The data on land restoration and land being prepared for quarrying by the removal of soil gives some indication of changes in the net use of land. The recorded area of land restored in 2004 is twice that where soil was stripped in preparation for quarrying.

Restoration of quarries is tightly controlled by planning permissions in terms of both the end use and speed of delivery.

A current issue is the declining availability of inert waste for use in quarry restoration. Much of the inert materials that were previously used for quarry restoration are now being diverted into less tightly controlled landfill tax-exempt disposal sites, and also for re-use in construction and aggregates markets. This latter use is good news for resource utilisation but may create an uncertain future for quarry restoration. Such a trend may not, therefore, be sustainable.

Aspirations

The industry has a long and widely recognised track record for the effective restoration of mineral extraction sites which enable the reuse or ‘recycling of land’ to beneficial and often improved after-uses. This success is heavily dependent upon the industry being able to attract sufficient clayey inert materials to infill the voids created by extraction. A combination of increased recycling by the industry of hard construction and demolition waste formerly used for restoration, and increased used of exemptions on unlicensed waste disposal sites, is jeopardising the industry’s future restoration ambitions.

The industry is working with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency to try to secure recognition of the problem and the contribution to sustainability that restoration and ‘recycling of land’ provides.