Making a suitable distinction is not straightforward because the environmental impacts associated with quarrying depend on factors such as:

• the area affected by extraction;
• the amount of stone (and, where relevant, ancillary minerals) produced;
• the rate(s) and duration of extraction; and
• the amount and frequency of associated traffic.

The following comments are made to assist those who need to implement the policies in MPS1.

 “There are currently about 300 active quarries and mines in England that produce building and roofing stone, but only a few produce roofing stone. Most are very small compared with, for example, modern aggregates quarries. Ninety percent of these are intermittently worked sites that have an annual output of 2000m3 or less and many produce 100m3 or less. These commonly have only one or two employees and mainly serve local or specialist markets. However, the remaining 10% of larger sites produce on average 20,000m3 per annum and, therefore, account for about 70% of the annual production of 650,000m3 (1m3 weighs about 2.0 to 2.6 tonnes). These larger quarries may market stone on a regional, national and even international scale”.

DETR Circular 2/99 Annex A sets out indicative thresholds and criteria for identification of Schedule 2 development requiring EIA. Paragraph A2 states, for surface and underground mineral working:

“The likelihood of significant effects will tend to depend on the scale and duration of the works, and the likely consequent impacts of noise, dust, discharges to water and visual intrusion. All new opencast mines and underground mines will generally require EIA. For clay, sand and gravel workings, quarries and peat extraction sites, EIA is more likely to be required if they would cover more than 15 hectares or involve the extraction of more than 30,000 tonnes of mineral per year”.

On the basis of the indicative threshold stated in the Circular, an area significantly less than 15ha might be taken to be small. However, some larger sites may only be worked intermittently and have a low overall output, although the rate may vary with demand from year to year. Conversely some small sites might be worked intensively for short periods of time and thus, have a high output, for instance, to supply a particular contract and, therefore, more concentrated environmental impacts. It is therefore difficult to be dogmatic about any definition based on area. Many applications below that threshold might still require EIA. In such cases, much depends on the content and findings of the submitted environmental statement.