Barton quarry extension plan

Construction materials company Heidelberg Materials Aggregates has submitted a planning application to Staffordshire County Council for an extension to its sand and gravel quarry at Barton-under-Needwood.

The quarry, to the east of the village off Walton Lane, employs 15 people directly and a further 25 in support services and supplies essential materials for local building projects. Most of it goes into the manufacture of ready-mixed and precast concrete.

The proposed 60 hectare extension area is west of the current quarry on agricultural land between the A38 and the railway line. It contains around 6.3 million tonnes of sand and gravel, which would be extracted over a 10 year period.

Heidelberg Materials’s land and planning manager Brian Shaw said the company had included a full environmental impact assessment with the application and did not expect the extension to affect local residents. “We will be consulting with our neighbours over the coming weeks to explain the proposal,” he said.

The proposed extension area will be worked in a similar way to the existing quarry. Soils and overburden will be removed before the sand and gravel is extracted by an excavator and transported by dump truck to a field conveyor, which will take the raw material across the railway and feed it into the existing processing plant.

The processing plant, stockyard, weighbridge and offices will all remain in use and access to the site will continue to be via the 1.5 kilometre internal road off Walton Lane. There are no changes proposed to the quarry’s output or working hours.

When quarrying is finished, the area will be restored to create landscaped water features with shallow margins, islands, ponds and tributary streams, bringing both biodiversity and flood storage benefits.