Denholme residents fight plans for landfill site

Battle lines have been drawn in a new fight over plans to reopen a controversial quarry as a dumping ground for millions of tonnes of waste.

Campaigners spent more than a decade successfully fighting a legal battle against quarrying company P Casey Enviro Ltd to prevent them from turning Buck Park into a landfill site.

The long-running battle cost campaigners from Denholme Residents Action Group about £100,000, incurred huge costs to Bradford Council and went before a High Court judge.

Now P Casey has put in a new application in a bid to eventually dump 2.5 million tonnes of rubbish at Buck Park Quarry.

Those opposing the scheme have said they would fight “tooth and nail” against the plans, which include proposals for a new junction and access road for heavy good vehicles.

Under the proposals, P Casey Enviro would build a junction between Whalley Lane and Keighley Road to allow HGVs to turn and the company would build site offices, a weighbridge and a secure compound for treating landfill gas and polluted drainage.

Councillor Michael Ellis (Con, Bingley Rural), who supported the residents in battling the first application, said: “It is a re-run of what happened before and the residents in Denholme are clearly up in arms about it.

“They were stopped from progressing with the quarrying then and now Casey Enviro has lodged another application.”

Graham Kershaw, chairman of DRAG, urged residents to once again support the group’s campaign against the plans.

No-one at P Casey Enviro Ltd was available to comment yesterday.

Details of the application

• About 240,000 tonnes of sandstone would be removed, as well as about 800,000 tonnes of crushed rock.
• Most of the crushed rock would be used to make the slopes for the landfill.
• The landfill volume would be about 1.5 million cubic metres. The site would receive about 250,000 tonnes of waste each year for nine years.
• The operating hours would be 7.30am to 6pm Mondays to Fridays; 7.30am to 1pm Saturdays, with no operations on Sundays, bank or public holidays.
• About 100 lorries would visit the site daily, on average about ten each hour.

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