Nine Ladies Interview

Here's a transcript of the interview...


The protest camp up at Nine Ladies in the Peak District National park has been here since September 1999 and we've just been served our papers. The quarry company have been given the possession order and we're anticipating an eviction at any moment now.

The protest site is against the re-opening of two dormant quarries which is situated kind of between Bakewell and Matlock and it's officially Peak District national park so really it shouldn't be touched at all.

The site is actually called Nine Ladies anti-quarry site because the area of the proposed quarries would actually go to with 100 metres of the Nine Ladies stone circle which is up on Stanton Moor.

Stanton Moor is one of the most archaeologically rich areas in the UK. There are four stone circles up there and the Nine Ladies and outlying King Stone are one of them. It's a really, really amazing moorland. It's a gritstone moorland that's covered in heather and birch trees and the site would go within 100 metres, just down the hillside so the whole area is going to be completely destroyed, the views the atmosphere. It's a really beautiful area. Its on a hillside. You can see right across the valley's and this really is the last opportunity to try and come and stop these plans for a quarry in a national park which is supposed to be preserved, not just for the people of Britain but for the people all over the world. It's a national park. This should not be destroyed for the profit of some company that want to ship the stone out to America and make pavements with it.

The company that want to reopen the two quarries are Stancliffe Stone. But in June 2001 they were bought out by Marshall's plc which is a big building materials company. Marshalls are really really big. They've got a lot of money, a lot of influence.

The site is 35 acres and its spread over a wooded hillside which is all regenerated quarry. The most recent area on site that was quarried was over fifty years ago and a lot of other parts have been left for longer than that.

At the moment the quarry companies are trying to claim that the quarries are active and not dormant. In 1995 after the environment act all the quarries in the country had to be classified as active or dormant and Lees Croft and Endcliffe were classified as dormant and Stancliffe didn't object at all to those classifications. But now they're suggesting, with their very good barrister, that they're actually active because they got permission in 1952. All three quarries got given permission and Dale View, which is the working quarry across the road, has been working but these two haven't been worked. They're trying to suggest that because one of them has been worked since the permission then all three should be classified as active.

At the moment on site we're just continuing with our defences on site, walkways, treehouses, the rest you know. We really need more people, we're very busy at the moment but we do really need more people. It's really beautiful place and this is going to be the last chance to come and visit and to help stop this. I mean obviously we've been served our papers and we are anticipating an eviction soon BUT the CPRE which are the Council for the Protection of Rural England are commissioning an independent report on the quality and quantity of stone that are left on the two sites.

Stancliffe Stone and Haddon Estates have both agreed, and the Peak Park, have all agreed that they will look at this independent survey to try to see if there is an alternative, and see if it is worth quarrying here and whether they could actually take an alternative site. So I mean there are still things going on. We're still trying to challenge it legally but we do need people on site but also need people to work with us on our legal campaign, working with the locals, lobbying the Peak Park who make the decision, lobbying Haddon Estates who own the land, lobbying Marshalls and Stancliffe who are also pushing through plans to quarry.

driving past the nether edge post office the other day and noticed stancliffe stone(?) being used to do up the building ..can anyone confirm that this is the same quarrying company abusing the environment at nine ladies..