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Glen Creran quarry proposal

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 PW 20 Jun 2016
There is currently a proposal for a huge sand and gravel quarry in Glen Creran, Argyll, on land owned by a Belgian business man, Dominique Collinet. The first phase would involve the extraction of 75,000 tonnes over 5 years, with the possibility of further extraction over the next following 20 years. Excavation would be down to a depth of 5 metres.
This is a beautiful glen. It is the main access point to two Munroes, Beinn Sgulaird and Beinn Fhionnlaidh and the start of low level walks to Ballachulish and Glen Etive.
Argyll and Bute Council have requested an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to support the planning application, and this will include landscape and visual impacts and the impact on recreation and access.
It is not possible to make formal objections until the planning application and EIA have been lodged with the council, so this is just an advance warning. The mountaineering lobby is very powerful and we should be ready to oppose the industrialisation of our mountains.
 IanMcC 20 Jun 2016
In reply to PW:

Bump
 George Allan 21 Jun 2016
In reply to PW:

North East Mountain Trust is interested in looking at this further. Also we can liaise with the other NGOs who may, or may not, already know about it. Has the developer lodged any pre-application requests/notifications with A and B Council? Can't find anything on the planning section of the Council's website. Do you have info about the exact proposed location (map ref)?
Email me rather than respond on here if you'd prefer.

George Allan

(On behalf of North East Mountain Trust SC008783)
OP PW 30 Jun 2016
UPDATE

There is now a website: http://www.quarryprotest.com/
 steelbru 30 Jun 2016
In reply to PW:

Sand, gravel, other aggregates are needed for roads, building, etc, so assuming we want infrastructure to be maintained and improved then they have to come from somewhere. Surely better to use our own resources and give employment to locals, than import from abroad ?

"industrialisation of our mountains" - from the map on the website this is not a quarry half way up a mountain, it's in the glen itself more or less at sea level.

Quarries have been dug all over the country for hundreds of years, often in very scenic locations, eg Glencoe etc.

I'm not sure I object to this in principal ( especially not from a hillwalking point of view, since this in the Hilltalk forum ), but can understand if I lived very close by that there is very likely to be added noise, heavy traffic on roads, etc, so a case of NIMBY

Tricky one..............
 ebdon 30 Jun 2016
In reply to steelbru:

Just for context 750000 t is a small to medium size quarry that unless you were above it (I don't know the geography in this area) would most Likely be difficult to spot from the ground. Weather or not this development is appropriate here I can't comment on not knowing the details. But as mentioned above these materials are important for construction/economic growth and they have to come from somewhere!
1
 Martin W 01 Jul 2016
In reply to PW:

> This is a beautiful glen. It is the main access point to two Munroes, Beinn Sgulaird and Beinn Fhionnlaidh

Is Glen Creran really the main access point for Beinn Fhionnlaidh? I know it is an access point, but the shortest bagging route is from Invercharnan in Glen Etive, and there is at least one other fairly well known route which accesses Beinn Fhionnlaidh from Glen Coe via Sgor na h-Ulaidh.

> Argyll and Bute Council have requested an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to support the planning application, and this will include landscape and visual impacts and the impact on recreation and access.

Having read the EIA request, I was more than a little surprised to see no reference to Loch Creran's designation as a Special Area of Conservation and a Marine Protection Area (although it does mention the Marine Consultation Area). The SAC designation is based on the existence of biogenic reefs of horse mussels and serpulid worms. According to SNH: By far the best developed and largest area of serpulid reefs in the world occur in Loch Creran (my emphasis). Given that the quarry is going to be situated slap bang next to the river which runs in to Loch Creran, I would have expected the risk of groundwater and runoff contamination from the quarry to be emphasised much more strongly in the EIA request. It looks to me as if the council have dropped the ball quite badly on this point.

> The mountaineering lobby is very powerful and we should be ready to oppose the industrialisation of our mountains.

The quarry site will be pretty much at sea level (the nearest spot height on the OS 1:25,000 map is 9m). Calling a development at such a location "industrialisation of our mountains" seems to be stretching the definition of "mountain" a bit far to be reasonably credible.

Regarding the quarry protest web site: I think some of its claims are open to challenge, or at least mitigation. For example, the "single track road" referred to appears to be a less than 1/4 mile stretch from the junction at the bridge over the River Ure to the start of the track which leads to the proposed quarry site (note: this is not the track to the farm shown on the OS 1:50,000 map - the track in question is only shown on the 1:25,000 map). I agree that it wouldn't be nice to meet a sodding great tipper lorry full of aggregate along there but, given that the track would almost certainly need to be significantly upgraded to handle quarry traffic, it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility for any permission granted to require that this stretch of public road be widened as well.

The web site also says: The Glen overlooks magnificent views of the Munroe Mountains. Leaving aside (a) the spelling mistake, and (b) the geographical error (ie there is no such thing as "the Munroe Mountains"), it's not clear how a sea-level quarry can "overlook" 3,000ft mountains. I think I get what they're trying to say, but they're not saying it very well IMO. It does look like the quarry could well be a bit of a scar on the landscape when viewed from Beinn Sgulaird, and indeed from other elevated locations above that part of the glen. I suspect it will not be visible from Beinn Fhionnlaidh, which is pretty well known for being difficult to see even from the start of the route from Glen Crearan - which is itself 2½ miles further up the glen from the site of the proposed quarry.

Nit-picking apart, and having been to and stayed in Glen Creran, I can quite understand people having concerns about the creation of an extraction site in a largely peaceful and undeniably attractive part of the world. I can also understand steelbru and ebdon's point about the practical uses for the proposed quarry's output. IMO it's a question of balancing the two. I would hope that, if granted, the permission would impose stringent and enforceable conditions designed to mitigate the worst of the undesirable impacts the development might have. (I'd actually be more worried about the risks posed to a site of global ecological and environmental significance than about a small part of the view being spoiled - but maybe that's just me.)

I do think that, by trying to rely on exaggerated claims about the development's adverse impact, the anti campaign could risk undermining the credibility of what would appear on the face of it to be a number of reasonable grounds for objection.

References:
The EIA request http://media.wix.com/ugd/f1d2e0_80b9bb92aafc47239abc6141a31651ca.pdf
SNH web page about serpulid reefs http://www.snh.gov.uk/about-scotlands-nature/species/invertebrates/marine-i...
SNH web page about the Loch Creran MPA http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/protected-areas/national-...
SNH advice document about the Loch Creran SAC http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/B16627.pdf
1
 Rich A 02 Jul 2016
In reply to steelbru:
You cannot cry NIMBYism opposition to this proposal based on tradition and a principle of historic quarries in beautiful parts of the UK. I would appose the principle of this quarry the same as if it were planned in Glencoe, as in your example.

There are already granite aggregate quarries 15km to the south of Creran at Bonawe on Loch Etive and 15km west the other side of Loch Linnie at Glensanda (10 million tonnes a year). I would have no opposition to an extension to these (although suspect the loch Etive one would be more of an issue for locals on the loch who rely on tourism). The visual and environmental (?) impact of the glensanda quarry is generally minimal, although after dark can put a crimp on the northern lights. I whole heartedly agree with you that they provide valuable local employment.

I suspect the folk in this area more receptive to 'industrialisation' than many parts of the UK. There is after all the Cruachan power station just down the road, a load of fish farms, huge areas of forestry and a large wind farm at Musdale (build more and plug the hospital, council offices and schools in).

Its hard for a non-expert to get to the bottom of the gains and impacts. Knowingly very little about quarrying it seems that the new site is planned on the old floodplain - so presumably the aggregates are to some extent already sorted, or offer something different to the granite quarries??? But with all the local raised beaches, burns and rivers, is this the best possible locations for this quarry? If you haven't been to the glen, simply, its stunning. One of the best places to see checkered skippers - a butterfly indigenous to this part of Scotland long extinct in England. Hundreds of tourists come to dive the unique reef. The nature reserves in the glen protect locally rare patches of native woodland now being extended beyond the glen with new planting.

All I can say is that it doesn't 'feel right' to have a quarry planned with the gates 300m from a 'national nature reserve' at head of a 'marine special area of conservation'.

I am open to being persuaded differently.
Post edited at 13:15
 Simon Caldwell 04 Jul 2016
In reply to Rich A:

> Its hard for a non-expert to get to the bottom of the gains and impacts.

Maybe we'd better have a national referendum about it

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