The BMC Access team attended a Leicestershire Quarries Symposium on 4th April, organised by BMC member Geoff Mason in conjunction with Leicestershire County Council.

The event sought to bring together all the main players with an interest in hard rock quarries as a recreational asset (and in particular for climbing) including the quarry companies themselves, Health and Safety representatives, geologists, blasting experts, minerals planners, conservation interests and many more. The idea was to explore ways forward to open up currently disused or inactive quarries for climbing, as well as incorporating climbing and recreation into restoration plans so that once quarry sites reach the end of their life, the remaining back walls are left in a suitable state for climbing to take place.

The event was a great success, with the morning spent listening to a number of excellent presentations on various key aspects relating to climbing and recreation in hard rock quarries as well as the quarry industry’s perspective. Following this, four workshops were held to discuss: model restoration schemes; balancing nature conservation with access; practical issues of hard rock quarry restoration & planning and default restoration plans. The reaction from the minerals companies who run the quarries was that they were generally very receptive to the ideas and were happy in principle to work with the BMC and other recreational users in the future to incorporate recreation into their restoration plans. 

The BMC would like to thank Geoff Mason for his efforts in getting the symposium off the ground, Leicestershire County Council for hosting the event and all who attended and contributed to what was a very positive discussion.
 

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