The BMC has welcomed the news that the Peak District National Park Authority has been granted permission to appeal against a High Court decision over alleged harmful quarrying on Longstone Edge, near Bakewell.

It is likely that the case will be heard before the end of the year.

This is the latest in a long series of legal contests over the site. Substantial parts of Longstone Edge are covered by a 1952 planning permission which allows for “the winning and working of fluorspar and barytes and for the working of lead and any other minerals which are won in the course of working these minerals”. This permission is now being used as a pretext for a massive limestone quarrying operation, in which the fluorspar and other minerals are being extracted and the entire hillside to the north west of Calver is under threat.

The Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) tried to put a stop to the quarrying but in March, a High Court Judge overturned the verdict of last year's public enquiry which had upheld the National Park Authority's enforcement action, and quarrying continues along with the destruction of the Peak District landscape in the process.

The Longstone Edge Coalition, a coalition of national and local environmental and amenity groups, including the British Mountaineering Council, the Council for National Parks, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the Peak District, Plantlife, the Ramblers’ Association and the Save Longstone Edge Group, have already called on Government ministers to step in and save the Peak District from uncontrolled quarrying. They are also working alongside the PDNPA to persuade Government to support revocation.

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