RETROSPECTIVE PLANNING APPLICATION FOR FENCE AT DEAN QUARRY APPROVED BY CORNWALL COUNCIL IN SPITE OF MAJOR OBJECTIONS.

At the meeting of the West Sub-area Planning Committee of Cornwall Council, chaired by Councillor Mark Kaczmarek on Tuesday 12th June 2017, members voted 8 to 2 in favour of the retrospective planning application PA17/00257 for a fence at Dean Quarry. Four members of the committee abstained from voting.

CADS solicitor, Chris Tofts, asked Councillors to consider whether a fence was required to quarry and if the fence conserved and enhanced the AONB.

Anthony Richards, on behalf of the St. Keverne Parish Council repeated the question and continued:  “It is also stated that this fence is needed to ensure the ‘safety and wellbeing’ of members of the public against potential hazards such as ‘steep cliffs and deep waters’. If this were to be the case then it must surely follow that the thousands of members of the public who walk Cornwall’s nearly three hundred miles of coastal path every day, would need protecting from ‘steep cliffs and deep waters’ with some sort of fence”.

Our new Divisional Representative, Julian Rand, urged Councillors to take into account the views  of the people who live here.

There were written objections from the AONB, Natural England, St. Keverne Parish Council, Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the Countryside Access Team and the Principal Public Space Officer for Cornwall Council, together with over 80 objections from members of the public.
Despite these representations, Planning Officer Ellis Crompton-Brown stressed the importance of protecting the public and suggested that simply painting the concrete posts in a colour to be agreed by the Local Planning Authority (LPA) would mitigate any harm to the landscape.

Cornwall Council voted in favour of this fence at Dean Quarry on 14.6.2017. They concluded that by painting the fence posts a colour to be agreed by the Local Planning Authority (LPA), the structure would enhance the AONB lanscape.

CADS will continue to oppose any future Planning Applications for major development at Dean Quarry.  The developer, Shire Oak Quarries Limited have well documented their plans to build a huge breakwater and jetties at Dean Quarry into the adjacent Manacles Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ). These structures are essential to supply the 60-80,000 tonnes of rock every month, throughout the year and beyond the next decade. Mark Shorrock, co-owner of Shire Oak Quarries Limited and CEO of Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay Limited
plans a series of Tidal Lagoons and is currently in negotiation with the UK Government on a strike price for subsidy levels.

The Manacles MCZ was designated in late 2013, in the first group of the UK’s MCZs. If this MCZ is breached by Shire Oak Quarries’ proposed development, it will result in long-term environmental damage and, as a test case for all MCZs, will bode ill for all the current and proposed UK MCZs.

The small Cornish communities and local businesses on the Lizard Peninsula have, for over two years now, been threatened with the re-opening and massive upsizing of Dean Quarry.