ANOTHER North Craven quarry operator has applied for planning permission to extend the life of its site.

Tarmac Northern Ltd has submitted an application to the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority to extend the life of Arcow Quarry at Helwith Bridge by six to seven years.

This comes just weeks after Lafarge Aggregates applied to the national park to keep its Dry Rigg Quarry - next to Arcow at Helwith Bridge - open until 2010.

That application is currently out to consultation and is not expected to be heard by the planning committee until the autumn.

Tarmac wants to keep its extraction rate about the same - around 300,000 tonnes a year - and estimates it will take it another 10 or 11 years to remove all the reserves. The company had planned to shut the quarry in the next three or four years.

Tarmac would continue with early morning lorry deliveries and Saturday mornings.

Ian Lindley, Tarmac's estates and special projects manager said: "This application will extend the life of the quarry and will maintain employment for the workforce, hauliers and contractors.

"Our traffic consultants looked at general traffic movements in the area. We start at 6am and traffic filters out over a period. If that traffic is delayed to 7.30am that could concentrate initial peak traffic movement at a time when Settle is coming alive.

"I am concerned that would result in a peak of traffic, potentially at a time when school children are moving around."

The national park's minerals officer Dave parrish said Tarmac's application included a new restoration scheme moving more towards nature conservation.

The bid also includes extending the quarry by just over three-quarters of a hectare to allow the stabilisation of the top faces.

Andrew Fawcett, of Trucks out of Settle Town Centre, said the action group would be writing to Tarmac pleading with them to alter lorry deliveries. "There is going to be a serious accident, quite apart from the effect on the quality of life."