Heidelberg Materials’ (formerly Hanson) operations in Chipping Sodbury include mineral extraction across the four quarries that make up our Chipping Sodbury quarry complex.
Our offices at The Ridge include our UK Shared Service Centre, Heidelberg Materials Group’s International Business Service Centre, Heidelberg Materials UK Contracting, our national road surfacing and infrastructure business, as well as our asphalt technical support team.
Combined around 500 employees are based in Chipping Sodbury offering a range of career and job opportunities. Learn more
Chipping Sodbury quarry is located to the north of Chipping Sodbury and west of Yate. The quarry complex comprises of four carboniferous limestone quarries – Southfields, Brinsham East, Brinsham West and Hampstead Farm.
The 500-acre quarry sits on a ridge of limestone stretching north to Wickwar and Cromhall. It directly employs 22 people, including staff and site-based contractors, plus many more in the local supply chain. Producing around 1,000,000 tonnes of limestone aggregates a year, the quarry supplies both Heidelberg Materials concrete plants as well as external customers. Materials derived from Chipping Sodbury have been used to construct projects ranging from major motorway repair schemes to local building works.
We are committed to being a good neighbour and actively support local initiatives and programmes which benefit the community and environment. We also work in close partnership with a number of conservation bodies to protect and enhance biodiversity at the site and regularly host school and college visits.
Contact us
For all quarry-related enquiries please email: chippingsodburyquarry@uk.heidelbergmaterials.com
Blasting notifications
To sign up to receive our free blasting notifications, please email us at: chippingsodburyquarry@uk.heidelbergmaterials.com and advise which method you would prefer to receive the notification; text (provide a mobile number) and/or email.
Suppliers
To request information about how to become a supplier click here.
Proposals for quarry temporary haul road
Our proposals for a temporary haul road between Brinsham West quarry and Southfields quarry have been developed to minimise disruption on local roads and reduce impact for residents and on the environment.
The scheme would replace the already approved construction of a permanent tunnel under the B4060 Wickwar Road to facilitate the haulage of crushed rock for further processing elsewhere in our Chipping Sodbury quarry complex. It would also remove the need to create a new road junction from Brinsham West onto the busy Wickwar Road.
Quarry operations
The quarry’s mineral processing plant is currently located in Southfields, where the extraction of limestone has already been exhausted, with Brinsham East and, to a lesser extent, Hampstead Farm, the site of current mineral working.
Ahead of extracting our permitted reserves in Brinsham West we have recently submitted revised access proposals to South Gloucestershire Council. These set out our plans for the development of a temporary haul road between Southfields and Brinsham West.
We believe installing a temporary haul road rather than constructing the already consented tunnel under the Wickwar Road would minimise disruption on local roads, mitigate the impact of quarry operations in Brinsham West on nearby residents, minimise impact on the environment and cut carbon emissions.
Details of our revised haul road application (October 2024) can be found here.
Diagram showing the limited impact of the proposed temporary haul road in comparison with the existing scheme
Operations and Blasting
Our planning permissions allow for blasting to take place between 10:00 and 16:00 Mondays to Fridays, and 10:00 to 12:00 on Saturday. No blasting is permitted at any other time, i.e, Saturday afternoons, Sundays or Bank or National Holidays.
To mitigate the impact of our operations on the local community wherever possible, we plan operations so that, blasting takes place on weekdays between 10.00 and 16.00. (Please note our blast times are approximate and, can be subject to change due to weather or operational safety requirements).
To sign up to receive our free blasting notifications, please email us at: chippingsodburyquarry@uk.heidelbergmaterials.com and advise which method you would prefer to receive the notification; text (provide a mobile number) and/or email.
Please see our privacy policy for details on how we manage personal data.
Hazardous tree management
Ash dieback disease has impacted thousands of ash trees across the UK since it was identified in 2012. A recent hazardous tree survey of the trees and woodland across our landholding at Chipping Sodbury, including Ridge Wood nature reserve, has identified that many ash trees are affected by the disease. Over time this means that the infected trees are likely to become increasingly brittle, drop branches and the most will eventually die and collapse. Understandably, we are now taking steps to ensure peoples’ safety as well as the safe removal of the impacted trees.
Working with South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) we have secured a felling licence from the Forestry Commission to enable felling works to be carried out and a specialist contractor will start work on the affected trees this autumn. The work is expected to take up to eight months to complete. It will involve removing many trees identified as posing a potential hazard from Ridge Wood, as well as from the area around our offices at The Ridge and on the perimeter of our Chipping Sodbury quarry complex. In order to carry out the works safely, some temporary road closures may be necessary and we will be liaising with SGC Highways team about this to ensure that all appropriate procedures are followed.
Mineral collecting at Chipping Sodbury Quarry
The Russell Society has been welcome to collect minerals at Chipping Sodbury Quarry for many years with the agreement of the quarry management team and over the years a wide range of minerals has been collected from the limestones worked.
Stone donation helps shape Believe Memorial Garden
Our Chipping Sodbury quarry has donated a selection of natural stone boulders to the newly opened Believe Memorial Garden at Cardiff Crematorium in Thornhill, which honours those who have donated organs.
Over 700 locals explore quarry operations at Chipping Sodbury quarry open day
Over the weekend, we opened the doors to our Chipping Sodbury quarry in South Gloucestershire for a family friendly open day, raising more than £1,600 for the town’s annual festival.
New pathway connects popular play areas in Yate
Residents of Yate, South Gloucestershire, are already making use of a newly created pathway linking Brinsham Park play area with the Ladden Garden Village Play Trail, thanks to a donation from our Chipping Sodbury quarry.
Community Liaison group
Our liaison group meets quarterly to discuss our operations and future thinking and members include community representatives, local elected representatives and local authority officers as well as members of the Chipping Sodbury management team and specialists from within our business.
We are keen to broaden the local membership of our liaison group, which meets to discuss our operations and future thinking. If you represent a local group and would like it to be considered for membership, please email us at chippingsodburyquarry@uk.heidelbergmaterials.com
Documents and reports
Supporting the community
As a responsible operator, we want to play our part in supporting communities near our sites as well as protecting and enhancing the local environment.
As a responsible operator, we want to play our part in supporting communities near our sites as well as protecting and enhancing the local environment.
Our community assistance programme includes the donation of money, materials and time, through our employee volunteering days. We also regularly host school and college visits for young people to learn about the mineral extraction process and how the materials are used in everyday life. Our approach is to prioritise support for initiatives:
- Promoting education, skills, and wellbeing
- Protecting/enhancing the environment
- Supporting biodiversity and sustainability
- Promoting the community and heritage of the area
Assistance is prioritised to groups making applications from within a three-mile radius of our Chipping Sodbury quarry site.
Recent beneficiaries of our local support programme include:
- SodburyFest 2024: Sponsored the use of inflatables in children’s play area
- Abbotswood Primary School: Students visited the quarry in March to learn about quarrying operations, materials and the environment
- The Chipping Sodbury Rotary Club Young Innovator competition: Sponsored prizes and provided expert feedback to participants
- Gloucester County History Trust: Donation to fund historical research towards VCH Volume 14: Yate and District
Request a donation
To make an application for funding, material donation and/or volunteer support, please tell us about your group and/or project, what type of support you are seeking and how your project’s aims align with our support initiative goals set out above via the link below.
History of the quarry
Evidence suggests that quarrying in the Chipping Sodbury area goes back to the Middle Ages, although the discovery of artefacts such as a Bronze Age axe head and Roman tiles and coins, suggests it may have been even earlier.
Since the mid-1800s limestone has been quarried commercially in the area with high quality mineral deposits found mostly in rocks from the Triassic age. Early last century Chipping Sodbury was home to a quarry called Lilliput, which excavated rock used as ballast for the 1903 Badminton Line Railway. The site of this quarry now serves as school playing fields.
In 1977, a tunnel was constructed beneath Wickwar Road so that quarrying could begin at Hampstead Farm. Today material is transported through the tunnel to the Southfields processing plant by a fleet of 4 Komatsu HD605 dump trucks, each capable of carrying 63 tonnes of material.
In 2015, a new excavation area in Brinsham East was opened and mineral extraction has been focused in this area since. Quarrying operations are set to soon move westwards into Brinsham West, where there are extensive permitted limestone reserves.
Quarrying today
Modern quarrying is highly regulated, and we take steps to minimise impact on the surrounding environment, as well as ensuring we are a good neighbour within the local communities in which we operate.
Heidelberg Materials (formerly Hanson) has made significant investment in environmental improvements to reduce dust and noise in recent years. This includes installing a computer-controlled dust suppression system, enclosure of the screening operations at Southfields and sprayers on the ends of every crushed rock conveyer belt across the site.
Sprayers have also been installed alongside internal roads, which have been surfaced to keep dust down and there are wheel washes for HGVs before leaving the quarry. We also initiate regular road sweeping of the public highway.
As part of our biodiversity initiatives extensive habitat enhancements were carried out in 2014, including the creation of six new ponds, several temporary wet scrapes and the planting of 2,900 trees and shrubs to boost wildlife habitats and provide wildlife corridors. More recently hydroseeding of the quarry banks near the offices in Southfields has taken place as well as the planting of a further 2,900 trees to improve habitat connectivity.
Join our team at the Chipping Sodbury site in Bristol
At Heidelberg Materials, we believe that great people make great things happen. Our Chipping Sodbury site, near Bristol, is home to many of our key functions that support the business.
Careers and apprenticeships
Working at Heidelberg Materials is about being part of One Team. We operate more than 300 manufacturing sites in the UK and employ over 4,000 people, offering a variety of careers and development opportunities.
These include a wide range of roles from production workers, plant operatives, engineers, technicians and drivers to sales, IT, finance and HR managers.
We also provide various apprenticeships, giving you the opportunity to earn while you learn. These include craft apprenticeships, such as mobile plant operators and mechanical engineers, as well as our three-year higher apprenticeship programme, which offers the first steps towards a varied career as well as the opportunity to secure valuable qualifications.
Careers and Apprenticeships
