What Are They Up To?

Uploaded by floydyopz on 9 Apr 2012

Shot on Good Friday 2012, this silent movie shews the greatly increased outflow from the adit that is draining into the sea from the disused Penlee Quarry. It also shews the mineral encrustation along the sides of the adit-stream. This indicates that the outflow was recently approximately 3 feet deeper than shewn in the film. It also illustrates how the increased depth of quarry-water has flooded into a rockpool, bleached the seaweed white and killed any fauna present. Environment Agency Incident Number: 978 352.

Quarry tests the water over scheme to ship rock armour

PROPOSALS to ship more than one million tonnes of stone from Penlee Quarry – and to link the quarry to the sea under the Newlyn to Mousehole road – have been submitted to Cornwall Council.

Quarry owners MDL Marinas (part of the Yattenden Group, owned by Baron Illiffe) are seeking a "scoping opinion" from planners to see whether an environmental assessment is required before full plans are submitted.

If successful, MDL would be able to ship out and sell rock armour, a stone typically used for sea defences and which was part of the rejected Option A plans for Penzance Harbour.

They would do so via barges under a fixed bridge which would be built in to Cliff Road – the main coastal access connecting Newlyn with Mousehole.

MDL Marinas director Ed Iliffe said the scoping opinion would not act as a precursor to controversial plans to build a marina, first touted almost a decade ago. But he did expect extra jobs to be created.

He said: "What we are really trying to do is to get ourselves in a position where we can react when a project comes forward.

"There is a lot of demand for armour stone. It could be required for schemes as far afield as the Isle of Wight and various harbour schemes being proposed in Hayle or in the Isles of Scilly.

"We will sell it to anyone who wants it but are more likely to sell in the UK.

"It isn't to do with the marina because the site already has permission to move about 20 million tonnes of minerals over the next 30 years."

He added that shipping the stone out by barge would avoid sending heavy goods vehicles through Newlyn.

Plans to build a multimillion-pound marina on the site of Penlee Quarry were first proposed after MDL took over ownership of the quarry in 2002.

They have included blueprints to build 200 new homes and a small hotel as well as the development of the marina itself.

Although the plans have since stalled, MDL is currently in discussions with a prospective partner to join it on the scheme, according to Mr Illife.

Caroline Astin, a member of former campaign group Stop the Marina, said she was wary of a possible link between two plans.

She said: "I couldn't imagine they would go through all that effort, blasting through the road just to clear out their backyard."

The latest plans for the future of Penzance Harbour and the Isles of Scilly sea link did not include rock armour on financial grounds.

Hadrian Piggot, from the Penzance Seafront Forum, who opposed the mineral's use in the initial Option A proposals, said: "Rock armour placed against existing sea defences causes damage to the heritage.

"I'm not saying no to the use of that mineral, it's actually how it's used and the use of it against existing sea defences."

Dick Cliffe, chairman of Penzance Chamber of Commerce, said: "Providing its done sensitively there shouldn't be a good reason to object to it.

"It's hard to divorce this idea from the longer-term plans. The bridge is going to cost a lot to build."...

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