Restoration of Blackhill Quarry on Woodbury Common continues apace.
Aggregate Industries is even winning awards from their industry colleagues for past restoration work.
.@AggregateUK Blackhill Quarry is Highly Commended and Runner-up for the biodiversity award for Landscape Scale #QandN17— MPA Mineral Products (@MineralProduct) October 19, 2017
However, some might find the headline "No quarrel over Aggregate’s quarry restoration" hard to swallow, after the company fought tooth and nail to cling onto the site - to process material from Straitgate Farm and to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of nitrate-rich silt into an area that needs nitrate-deficient soils.
Anyway, it's all good news now; AI has even been finding great crested newts - a European Protected Species - at Blackhill. Readers will remember that AI has something of a history with GCNs:
At Rockbeare, the company found GCNs at the 11th hour as a reason why it couldn't use the site to process material from Straitgate; and yet, at Straitgate, AI still hasn't done a full survey of all the surrounding ponds - as highlighted by Natural England back in 2015.
In AI's application to extend the use of Blackhill, DCC had to advise the company that:
No information is provided in the ES as to whether there are protected species on the application site...
There is one record of great crested newt within 2 km of the site (at Woodberry [sic] in 2001). 4.33
The only protected species recorded within or immediately adjacent to the site within the last ten years is the butterfly silver-studded blue Plebejus argus. 4.34
So, GCNs couldn't be found when the site's planning application was being discussed, but can be found when there are biodiversity prizes at stake. Funny that.
