Mineral operations test case goes to the Appeals Court

The Peak District National Park Authority has been granted permission to appeal against a High Court decision over quarrying operations at Longstone Edge, near Bakewell.

Judges in London have decided that both the national park authority and the Department for Communities and Local Government had a case that should be heard by the Court of Appeal.

They also agreed the challenge should be heard quickly - possibly before the end of this year.

The decision related to limestone operations at Backdale, at the eastern end of Longstone Edge, which the authority has argued is harming the national park's special landscape. This latest action is the latest in a long series of legal contests over the site.

In March, a High Court judge overturned the verdict of last year's public inquiry which had upheld the national park authority's enforcement action over the limestone extraction. As a result, extraction has resumed at Backdale and has been under way ever since. This decision is what the Court of Appeal will now review.

National park authority chief executive Jim Dixon said: "We welcome this decision - it’s clearly good news that the judges agreed with our case there is a need for serious scrutiny of the High Court judgment.

"However, we must make it clear that the authority will not be in a position to issue a stop notice at the site until the appeal has been heard, and we will continue to pursue a permanent solution to the problems of quarrying, here and across the wider area of Longstone Edge."

The landowner, Bleaklow Industries Ltd, and operator MMC Mineral Processing Ltd, are operating under a 1952 planning permission for "the winning and working of fluorspar and barytes and for the working of lead and any other minerals which are won in the course of working those minerals".

The authority has claimed that the limestone operations go beyond this planning permission.

Roger Milne

31 July 2008