Protesters Dig In Against Peak Quarry

Environmental protesters have dug in to protest at the extension of quarrying in the Peak District National Park.

The protesters have constructed a network of tunnels and treehouses at a 32-acre site at Stanton Lees in Derbyshire where a quarrying company has been granted permission to expand long abandoned workings in order to extract sandstone on a large scale.

The result, says a front page story in Saturday's Guardian newspaper, will be 'a battle of the intensity of the road protests at Twyford Down and Newbury in the 1990s'. The quarrying is also fiercely opposed by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England.

The quarry planning permission dates from the early 1950s and is just one of at least 100 similar permissions still hanging over national parks. The company involved meanwhile claims that the effect of the new quarrying 'will be minimal'.

It seems absurd that an outdated planning permission gives a company the right to open up workings in the middle of the most popular national park in Europe. For more details see the Guardian story online.