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From: diggers350@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 5:04 AM
Subject: [diggers350] Digest Number 385
Organisation: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/diggers350/

Nine Ladies - background and public consultation

There are 2 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest -

1.
Fw: Re: Nine Ladies protest site - in Court Thursday -
From: office@tlio.demon.co.uk

2.
Fwd: Re: Public Consultation into Quarry at Nine Ladies -
From: office@tlio.demon.co.uk

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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:39:37 +0000
From: office@tlio.demon.co.uk
Subject: Fw: Re: Nine Ladies protest site - in Court Thursday

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 12:23:48 +0000
From: office@tlio.demon.co.uk
Subject: Fwd: Re: Public Consultation into Quarry at Nine Ladies

From: ladyrowan100@yahoo.com

People who want to help are encouraged to write to the PDNPA and tell them why you are opposed to this development.

(Note: public consultation is for the duration of January only) -

The Peak District National Park Authority,
Aldern House,
Baslow Road,
BAKEWELL,
Derbyshire DE45 1AE
Tel - 01629 816200
Fax - 01629 816310
email: aldern@peakdistrict-npa.gov.uk

If you want to be on the phone tree (to be informed when eviction starts), please get in touch via the site mobile number 0700 5942212

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The Nine Ladies protest site. Set up in 1999 to stop a proposed 3.2 million tonnes being extracted from the beautiful and historically important Peak District National Park. The camp is about to be evicted allowing the destruction of 30 hectares of land. Papers were served on Monday 19th Jan, and they are in court for a possession order on Thursday. People urgently needed to sort out defences, and to be there if eviction follows shortly after. Climbers have and are being approached. New site number - 07005942212

On 12 December 2003 Stancliffe Stone, a subsidiary of Marshalls PLC submitted a scheme for working the quarries at Endcliffe and Lees Cross to the Peak District National Park Authority, PDNPA. They want to extract 3.2 million tons of rock from a 12.95 hectare site within 100m of the Nine Ladies Stone Circle. The resultant scar will be 100m deep, devastating the environment of this treasured site for ever.

Background info

The 4000 year old Iron Age Stone Circle, Nine Ladies, has over the 20th Century been threatened by quarrying. Lees Cross and Endcliffe are old dormant quarries lying on the eastern moorside near the stones.

1952: Stancliffe Obtains Lease of Mineral Rights to Endcliffe and Lees Cross Quarries from landowner, the Duke of Rutland, Haddon Hall. The Quarries are given planning consent because of the pressing need for postwar building materials.

1995: Under the environment act Lees Cross and Endcliffe are declared dormant (inactive). The operator is NOT allowed to work a dormant quarry unless working practices have been agreed with the PDNPA. Stancliffe is given time to disagree with this decision and does not do so.

1999: Stancliffe make a submission to agree working practices and reopen the quarries. The submission meets widespread opposition and is cannot considered because the environmental impact assessment is not adequate. Nine Ladies Anti-Quarry Campaign, a protest site situated in the quarries themselves is set up.

2001: Stancliffe is bought out by the much larger Marshalls PLC

2003: Marshalls submit a new scheme for working, with the necessary paperwork, to reopen the quarries and extract 3.2 million tons of rock. If the PDNPA revokes the existing consent, they may be liable compensation equal to the market value of the stone. There is no way the authority can come up with this sum which could be more than £100 million.

Lees Cross and Endliffe are dormant quarries. Marshalls have hired a barrister to claim that the quarries should be classed as active. Even though this is blatantly untrue, if this view was upheld in law the PDNPA would be restricted in what working conditions it could impose on the quarry.

As part of the Lease agreement, the landowner, Lord Edward Manners, receives £30 for each ton of rock extracted. If the quarry goes ahead Haddon Hall will make around £100 million.

This raises a serious question: As an example of British aristocracy, should the Duke of Rutland, pocket £100m for sitting back and letting the land around this ancient site be destroyed? Or as a Landowner, should he bite the bullet and protect the land that he owns? We leave you to make your own mind up.

Write to : DEFRA Helpline
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
3-8 Whitehall Place
London SW1A 2HH

Lord Edward Manners
Haddon Hall
Bakewell
Derbyshire De45 1LA

visit / contact - Nine Ladies anti-quarry campaign
Lees Road, Stanton Lees, MATLOCK, Derbyshire, DE4 2LQ Tel: 0700 5942212

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Diggers350 - an e-mail discussion/information-share list for campaigners involved with THE LAND IS OURS landrights network (based in the UK - http://www.thelandisours.org). The list was originally concerned with the 350th anniversary of The Diggers (& still is concerned with their history). The Diggers appeared at the end of the English Civil war with a mission to make the earth 'a common treasury for all'. In the spring of 1999 there were celebrations to remember the Diggers vision and their contribution. Find out more about the Diggers and see illustrations at http://www.bilderberg.org/diggers.htm

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