Quarry extension will provide up to 30 new jobs

We’re delighted to announce that a planning application to extend one of our Clipsham quarry sites has been given the go-ahead by Rutland County Council. The announcement safeguards the existing stone supply from our Clipsham Bidwells quarry site for the next 30 years whilst also allowing the site to be extended.

“We are delighted with the decision to let us extend the quarry by 14ha to the south of the site. This extension will provide an uplift in the local economy and will create up to 30 new jobs in the area over the next 10 years,” explains Director, Laura Green.

Throughout the planning process, we have been in close consultation with local authorities and community groups to discuss the proposals and to provide all the surveys and reports required to fully evaluate a large-scale project like this. Full noise and dust surveys were completed, along with ecology reports reviewing localised bat and wildlife habitats and populations and archaeology and hydrology reports.

“This project will include a phased restoration of the area, meaning that we will be focusing on restoring the local biodiversity within the areas that have been quarried. This takes the form of infilling the older sites and reintroducing the natural wildlife to the site, so that in time you will never know we have quarried those areas,” adds Laura.

The authorities have granted permission for the extraction of 500,000 tonnes of premium masonry block stone and 1.75 million tonnes of building/walling stone over the next 30 years. In order to reduce the impact on the local community, part of our quarry extension project includes the creation of on-site production facilities which will reduce the movement of the quarried stone, which originally would all have had to have been transported via the A1 to the current production site at Helpston.

“We are looking forward to working with the local community and we will do everything we can to minimise any disruption. The planning permission stipulates certain restrictions to our operation, including only quarrying on the site during working hours to avoid any noise issues or inconvenience to local residents during unsocial hours.”

We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and quarry our stone sustainably and ethically. We have a robust environmental policy in place which recycles resources wherever possible and cuts the use of any unnecessary resources.

“We will continue to focus on enhancing the local biodiversity of the area at both our Clipsham Bidwells and Clipsham Medwells Quarries with schemes that will improve existing drainage and carefully manage the ecology of the sites. For example, within the proposed extension site at Clipsham Bidwells, there is a patch of calcareous grassland that has been deemed a site of special interest and one, therefore, which we will, with the help of the experts, very carefully re-site.”

We are proud to be the exclusive, global supplier of Clipsham limestone, having operating Clipsham Medwells Quarry since 2001, and acquiring the Clipsham Bidwells Quarry in 2018. Our stone is supplied for use on some of the UK’s most prestigious building projects. Recently, we have been awarded two high profile contracts – our limestone has been specified for a new build project at the historical site of St John’s College in Oxford and for use on a new facade at the CUS and Trinity buildings in Cambridge.

The quarry extension works are due to start at the end of summer 2020.