COUNCILLORS are being urged to join forces with residents and conservationists to prevent extra quarrying in an area considered a natural heritage site.

Marshalls, owners of Scout Moor Quarry, Ramsbottom, want permission to extract an extra 5.6 million tonnes of sandstone, 10.9 million tonnes of gritstone and one million tonnes of shale from the site. The rock would serve the company's concrete works in Halifax and Ramsbottom, with two thirds going over the border into Yorkshire.

Rossendale Council engineers estimate the quarrying could mean up to 450 lorry loads a day leaving the quarry and heading to the M66 through Edenfield via a small mini roundabout.

Lancashire County Council has agreed to roadworks suggested by the company but Rossendale planners believe local residents would still be badly affected by the numbers of lorries going through the village every day.

The company already has permission to quarry 55 hectares of Scout Moor. The new application would extend the site by 21 hectares. The plan was discussed by the council's planning sub committee last night and will be referred to the full engineering and planning committee later in the month.

A report to the sub-committee questions the need for quarrying on such a large scale, particularly as rock is available in Halifax. It warns: "The fact that Scout Moor is to provide all the 300,000 tonnes required by Halifax means that existing reserves elsewhere and closer to Halifax will either be left unworked or material sold on the open market."

English Nature has objected to the plan because the area has been designated a Biologicial Heritage Site. It contains a rare type of blanket bog and the organisation warns that the UK, which holds between eight and 13 per cent of the global resource, has a special responsibility for blanket bog conservation.

Ornithologists are also concerned to protect birds, including twite, golden plover, curlew and wheatear, which breed in the area.

The sub-committee is also being advised to object to a separate application to extract coal through open cast mining on Scout Moor.

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