Eryri Local Development Plan

Transcription

1 Eryri Local Development Plan Background Paper 9 Minerals Updated March 2011

2 Background 1.1. Snowdonia is particularly well blessed with a wide range of mineral resources, including a range of metals such as gold, copper, lead, zinc and manganese. The hard igneous and metamorphic rocks, a legacy of periods of intense volcanic activity over 450 million years ago, provided durable building stone and slates for roofing The main lead and zinc deposits are concentrated in the area running north from Betws y Coed - these were worked mainly during the 19 th and early 20 th Centuries. The National Park Authority has been involved in the reclamation and interpretation of the mining remains in this area. Some of these sites have been designated as Special Areas of Conservation because the mining wastes support unusual communities of metal tolerant plants and bats make use of old shafts and adits Gold has been extracted from the Dolgellau Gold Belt since the 1840s and although mining has ceased sporadic exploratory works continue to this day During the 1970s the multinational company Rio Tinto Zinc sought permission to drill boreholes with a view to exploiting a vast copper porphyry deposit which lies below Coed y Brenin Forest. A large public outcry resulted it was felt that large scale mining should not occur in national parks and RTZ abandoned their plans The rocks of the area have been used for buildings for millennia there are numerous Neolithic burial chambers scattered throughout the Park and stone was used to build farmsteads, enclose the first fields and build defensive hillforts. Much of this stone was collected from the surface of the land during field clearances however rock with special qualities was also quarried. With the closure of Tonfannau Quarry in 1998 no hard rock quarrying takes place in the Park A number of towns and villages owe their existence to the slate industry. When the National Park boundaries were being drawn up during the early 1950s these areas were excluded because there was a perception that they were ugly and industrialised. However by now they are appreciated because they represent a key part of the socio-economic history and culture of the area There are no commercially significant sand and gravel deposits in Snowdonia. Minerals Issues 1.8. Demand for primary aggregates (hard rock, sand and gravel) from the North Wales region is unlikely to rise in the future and a greater proportion of that demand is being met by secondary and recycled aggregates, including slate waste. There are sufficient permitted reserves of igneous and metamorphic rock in North Wales to meet foreseeable demand as indicated in a landbank of nearly years so there is no impetus to open new quarries. 1 North Wales Regional Aggregates Working Party Annual Report

3 1.9. It has been long standing national policy that large scale mineral working should not be permitted in national parks and that any proposal for such working should be examined rigorously (the Silkin Test) and permitted only if there was no way of meeting the need from outside the national park The Authority is represented on the Regional Aggregates Working Party. Part of the RAWPs remit has been to produce annual reports setting out statistics on the supply and demand of aggregates Since the publication of the Minerals Technical Advice Note (MTAN)1 on Aggregates in 2005 the RAWP is also charged with producing a Regional Technical Statement (RTS) which has to:- Set out the results of the regional assessment of the environmental capacity of each MPA to contribute to an adequate supply of primary aggregates; Provide a strategy for the provision of aggregates in the region in accord with that regional assessment, with allocations of future aggregates provision for each mineral planning authority area to provide a strategic basis for future development plans; Assess current and future imports and exports of aggregates; Assess the current and future contribution of marine aggregates; Advise the Assembly on the potential in each region in Wales for increasing the use of alternative materials to replace primary aggregates The Regional Technical Statement contains the following recommendation regarding Snowdonia Recommendation: Where appropriate, hard rock resources (mainly igneous rock) should be selectively safeguarded against prejudicial development, especially in those areas exhibiting high environmental capacity. The relatively small areas of sand and gravel should be identified and similarly safeguarded. However such a designation should not be taken to infer that future working will be permitted Support should be given to facilitate the use of slate waste for aggregates where this is environmentally acceptable. This includes assisting efforts made to exploit and transport material from areas outside the National Park such as Blaenau Ffestiniog, especially where this can be achieved by rail While large-scale mineral working is unlikely to be acceptable in the National Park at present, national planning policy requires certain minerals to be safeguarded in the long-term, well beyond the lifetime of this Plan, from developments that would potentially sterilise their future use. This does not indicate an acceptance that the mineral can be worked. Mineral extraction within the National Park will have to be justified by overriding need for the mineral in the national interest and the fact that the mineral cannot be sourced from areas outside the Park boundaries 3

4 1.16. The British Geological Survey (BGS) is currently in the process of producing Minerals Resource Maps for the whole of Wales however the maps for Snowdonia have not yet been published Until that information is made available the National Park Authority considers that outcrops of Ordovician volcanic rocks in the National Park should be identified, using digital geological mapping provided under licence by BGS, and safeguarded where appropriate. These rocks have been exploited in the past at quarries such as Tonfannau, Arenig and Pant y Carw to provide hard wearing road surfacing materials and railway ballast As no large sandstone quarry sites exist/ed in Snowdonia it is not possible to identify with any accuracy potential high quality resources and for that reason no sandstones are shown on the safeguarding map. Should further evidence become available as to the quality and location of such resources the map may be revised The use of secondary aggregates is now actively encouraged by Government guidance as an alternative to crushed hard rock and sand and gravel in many construction and civil engineering applications. However it is not considered necessary to safeguard slate waste tips as they are highly unlikely to be permanently sterilised by development and for the reasons outlined below The volume of slate waste present in North Wales tips is in the order of 730 million tonnes, with an estimated 370 million tonnes located at the active quarries near Bethesda and Blaenau Ffestiniog (outside the National Park).A further 34 million tonnes could be generated in the future by permitted extraction of slate A small area of sand and gravel in the vicinity of Bryncir will be safeguarded In drawing up the areas to be safeguarded the NPA did consider undertaking a sieving exercise with the intention of taking environmental constraints on mineral working into account. However given the extensive areas of the Park covered by international nature conservation designations such as SACs and SPAs and national designations such as SSSIs and NNRs and in looking at these, and the areas where potential hard rock resources occurred, it was apparent that the area to be safeguarded would be significantly reduced. As there is no presumption in favour of working the safeguarded mineral resources it was considered that it would be premature to undertake this type of exercise Although there is also a wealth of metallic vein minerals to be found in the National Park, including gold, copper, manganese, lead and zinc it is not considered necessary to identify those areas where they occur, or safeguard them as their extraction would be, in the main, by underground mining methods and more scope exists as to where shafts and adits for accessing the resource can be located Given the extensive controversy surrounding Riofinex s copper exploration programme in Coed y Brenin during the late 1960 s and early 1970 s it is very difficult to envisage any circumstances in the foreseeable future where it would 4

5 be considered acceptable to excavate the extremely large-scale open cast pit that would be required to remove the porphyry copper body (200 million tonnes at 0.3% Cu) that was discovered. For this reason this particular mineral resource will not be safeguarded Whilst it would appear that large scale mineral workings are not appropriate in national parks many of the traditional buildings found in the area and which contribute to its special character are built of stone and roofed in slate. Planning policies require the new buildings to respect the local tradition and use stone and slate on their construction. Local building stone is in short supply and stone from outside the area is often used and can look out of place Policies in the LDP should permit, where appropriate, the extraction of stone for building purposes. This should occur either through the re-opening of old small quarries or through the opening of a new quarries. Because of the environmental sensitivities of the National Park it is considered that these quarries should only serve a local need for the material. In order to retain a degree of control of the impact of the working the permissions will be time limited MTAN1 on aggregates requires MPAS to consider establishing Buffer Zones around active quarries. This is in order to protect the amenity of sensitive developments in the vicinity of the workings. The MTAN gives indicative distances for buffer zones according to the nature of the activity taking place. However the small number of workings in the National Park involve removing slate waste from tips through mechanical extraction only no explosives are used and as a result it is not considered necessary to define buffer zones around these sites. Appendix 1 sets out in greater detail the reasons for not showing buffer zones on the Proposals and Inset Maps Minerals Planning Policy Wales requires MPAs to develop a strategy for dealing with dormant mineral sites. It is not considered necessary to set out a strategy for the future use of dormant mineral sites in Snowdonia for the following reasons The National Park Authority was responsible for managing an extensive programme of land reclamation schemes on a number of derelict lead and zinc mines on Forestry Commission land in the Gwydyr Forest. The sites are of industrial archaeological and ecological interest and this interpreted on the sites. It is highly unlikely that these sites will ever be reworked Prohibition Orders have been confirmed on 4 sites (3 hard rock quarries and 1 lead mine). The remaining dormant sites in Snowdonia have become assimilated into the landscape. There is no pressure from operators to re-work the sites or from developers to reclaim/restore them to other uses. The sites cannot be reworked without the submission of a scheme of modern conditions. 5

6 1.29. The MTAN also requires Mineral Planning Authorities to consider serving Prohibition Orders on dormant sites i.e. those which have not been worked for a period of 2 years and where there is little likelihood of them being re-worked. Prohibition Orders effectively removes the planning permission. This approach has significantly reduced the aggregates landbank in some regions. The SNPA has successfully served four prohibition orders to date There are currently no active gold mines in Snowdonia although some exploration works have taken place. Some of the operations have been more akin to mining, i.e. sinking new shafts and opening new, or extending existing underground levels. There are grounds for concern with this type of activity. Firstly it involves more extensive operations than, for example, the drilling of boreholes or the digging of shallow trial pits, leaving underground voids and the potential for the discharge of acidic mine waters into watercourses. Secondly it would be difficult to differentiate the exact point that exploration became extraction once the underground works had been developed. 6

7 APPENDIX 1 Reasons for not defining Mineral Buffer Zones in the SNPA Background According to MTAN 1 Aggregates, the objective of a buffer zone is to protect land uses that are most sensitive to the impact of mineral operations from the effects of dust, vibration, noise or general disturbance. The intention is to define a buffer area around existing or proposed mineral extraction sites and prevent the spread of sensitive development or further mineral extraction within the buffer zones. This assumes that there may be current or potential conflicts of land use as the mineral operation or sensitive development move closer to each other. In this case sensitive development is considered to be a school, hospital or residential development and some high technology industries. Some less sensitive development such as offices and some industry may be located within buffer zones. It is recommended in MTAN 1 that as a minimum a buffer zone for hard rock quarries should extend to 200m away from the outer edge of a site where extraction or processing operations are taking place. There will be circumstances however where a mineral site is located in a remote location, far away from the possible encroachment of sensitive development. It may also be the case that the scale and level of activity is also unlikely to cause any significant nuisance and is properly controlled by a comprehensive conditional planning permission. In the former case there would be little point in defining a buffer as there is nothing to buffer against and equally with the latter the nature of the activity would not cause a nuisance as it is properly controlled by planning conditions. The Situation in the SNPA Three small-scale mineral sites are working, or have recently been worked intermittently in the Park, namely: Braich Ddu Tyn Coed Craig y Tan Braich Ddu (Grid Ref SH ) Braich Ddu is a small old slate quarry located in open moorland at an elevation of 320m AOD lying some 1.2km SE from the Roman fort complex at Tomen y Mur and some 3km north of Trawsfynydd. The two most recent planning permissions for the removal of slate waste (200tpa) from old tips were time limited, expiring on 31/01/2009and 05/05/2010 respectively. The use of explosives was forbidden as was new excavation. It is anticipated that new application will made to remove waste. Planning permission for the retention of a slate sawing shed was granted on 29/09/ this expires 30/10/2012. The nearest two dwellings lie at 521m and 986m respectively from the site. Given the very small-scale of working and the highly remote location of this site it is not considered necessary to delineate a Buffer Zone in this vicinity as it is highly unlikely that any applications for sensitive development, as defined in MPPW, will come forward as a result of other policies in this plan which protect the open countryside and steer such developments to more sustainable sites in the larger settlements. Any future working would be controlled with strict planning conditions. 7

8 Tyn Coed (Grid Ref SH ) Tyn Coed is a moderately sized old slate quarry located on a hillside overlooking the Mawddach estuary which lies to the north. The lowest part if the site lies at an elevation of 46m AOD. The quarry is located some 300m north of the nearest part of the small settlement of Arthog. The current time limited planning permission is for the mechanical removal of slate from an old waste tip. There are 16 conditions attached to the permission which are aimed at protecting the amenity of nearby residents and the environment and cover topics such as:- Annual and daily tonnage limits Operating Hours Location of mobile plant Noise Dust suppression Protection of water courses The permission expires on 20/04/2018. The nearest two dwellings to the site lie 112m and 133m respectively from the boundary and separated from the site by the A493. The site is not in continuous operation. Given its location, and the nature of activity undertaken, it is not considered necessary to delineate a Buffer Zone in this vicinity as it is highly unlikely that any applications for sensitive development, as defined in MPPW, will come forward as a result of other policies in this plan which protect the open countryside and steer such developments to more sustainable sites in the larger settlements Craig y Tan Grid (Ref SH ) Craig y Tan Quarry is a former hard rock quarry which provided materials for the construction of the Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station in the latter part of the 1950 s and early part of the 1960 s. It lies at an elevation of 270m AOD close to the old railway station. A Prohibition Order was confirmed on the site in October 2001 which removed permission for quarrying under the old consent. A stone mason s business is located in the quarry mainly using imported stone. The permission allowed limited quarrying of new material without the use of explosives until 31/05/2005. The nearest two dwellings are 64m and 105m respectively from the site boundary. Given its location, and the nature of activity undertaken and the fact that permission for extraction has expired, it is not considered necessary to delineate a Buffer Zone in this vicinity as it is highly unlikely that any applications for sensitive development, as defined in MPPW, will come forward as a result of other policies in this plan which protect the open countryside and steer such developments to more sustainable sites in the larger settlements. Any future working would be controlled with strict planning conditions. New Small Quarries Pre-existing paragraph 3.25 of the LDP refers to the possible use of local stone and the possible re-opening of small quarries for this purpose. Any derived local need is likely to be small and temporary and in assessing any application all the policies in the Plan should be taken into consideration. The same applies to slate waste. Buffer Zones can 8

9 only apply to existing or proposed mineral sites and not to potential future sites, which can be adequately controlled, if granted planning permission, by appropriate conditions 9