The prospects of environmental disaster at a local quarry was presented to Kirklees Cabinet in March by Clare Walters, Green Party parish councillor and election candidate for Dalton ward. Clare asked for support from officers but at the end of the meeting was disappointed.
Activist and wildlife conservation adviser, Clare Walters who is a member of Kirkburton Parish Council, was reporting to Kirklees Cabinet about the recent developments at Laneside quarry in Kirkheaton.
Clare said: “Things have now become urgent. Returning lapwing and skylarks have nowhere to nest, their breeding area uninhabitable because of overstocking by cattle. It is not too late – if the animals are removed before mid-March and the grassland rested and cut for hay then the birds might still breed.
“I have collected signatures from over 1500 local people who love this little hidden gem and want it to be saved but It seems that nobody in a position to avert this destruction is listening. In desperation, I went to the Council’s cabinet, hoping that the councillors present would alert the relevant officers to the urgency of the issue. The response was not encouraging, but I will continue to work to save the site for wildlife while ever there is.”
The history of the quarry
Laneside quarry in Kirkheaton was used to extract clay for Elliot’s brickworks. After the factory closed in around 1974 it lay idle for many years and became an oasis for wildlife amidst countryside increasingly impoverished by intensive silage, grain production and grazing by dairy herds.
The quarry is an SSSI because of the presence of great crested newts. It is also a designated priority habitat as part of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan because of the priority species it contained. It was until very recently home to grasshopper warblers, song thrush, reed bunting, garden warblers, lapwing and skylarks as well as wall brown and dingy skipper butterflies, pipistrelle and noctule bats, badgers, foxes and roe deer.
In 2000, owners Elliot’s were granted planning permission to change the use to a landfill site on condition that they carried out extensive mitigation. This they began before selling the site on to Casey’s who remained the owners and, although they did no landfill works, continued with the upkeep of mitigation areas until 2019 when they sold the quarry on to Crompton’s. By this time the value of the site for wildlife had increased and an impressive species list was compiled annually by local naturalists.
New owners Crompton applied to the council for change of use from a repository for household refuse to a recycling area for building rubble and a site for dumping soil. Despite the declaration of a Climate Emergency, Kirklees Council failed to us this opportunity to review the permissions. If they had it could have prevented the felling of Cockley Beck, an ancient semi natural woodland within the quarry area, or to review the protection needed for the site to avoid reduced numbers and diversity of wildlife.
Clare has been attempting to engage with Crompton’s, Natural England, Kirklees ecologists, planners and councillors for two years.
Sadly Crompton’s have carried out no maintenance of mitigation areas since they took ownership. They have inadvertently destroyed much of the value of the site while building haul roads into the quarry. As a result, sensitive species such as the grasshopper warblers and dingy skipper have now been lost. They have also introduced a herd of highland cattle which have been left to overgraze and poach a grassy hillside which had been a nesting site for skylark and lapwing.
Clare is still pushing for changes. She argues for a new management agreement to be put in place to save the colony of 25 lapwing that bred on the site until last year and all the other species that flourished on the site.