Quarry firm loses patience

The planning inquiry ended five years ago

The company behind the nine-year saga of a planned massive quarry in the Western Isles is taking the Scottish Executive to court.

Lafarge Redland is asking for ministers to be given 21 days to make a decision about the Lingerbay quarry on Harris.

The company said its patience had finally run out following the Environment Minister Sarah Boyack's referral of the plan to Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) last month.

Ms Boyack wants SNH to consider if the quarry site should be recommended to become a special area of conservation.

Patience has run out. We don't have confidence that ministers want to take a decision

Redland planning director John Leivers

If approved, the status would kill off the project.

Redland said the referral was in breach of ministers' statutory duty.

Redland's planning director John Leivers said the conservation area proposal appeared to have come out of the blue.

"Lingerbay was not on the 1996 list, not on the 1998 list, it wasn't on the 2000 list which was approved in June this year.

Agency objected

"So it's not an issue about special areas of conservation. It's an issue of timing," he said.

"Patience has run out. We don't have confidence that ministers want to take a decision.

"It's the only way we can force the issue."

The company is also unhappy with the involvement of SNH because the agency was one of the original objectors to the proposals.

When the first planning application was submitted in 1991, the quarry was described as "the biggest hole in Europe".

A public inquiry began in October 1994 and finished the following March but successive governments have kept the findings under wraps.

No comment

The inquiry sat for 100 days, heard more than 100 witnesses and received between 400 and 500 submissions.

A Scottish Executive spokesman said the court documents had only just been received and he declined to comment.

Lingerbay is Scotland's longest-running and most expensive planning application.

Redland plans to extract 10m tonnes of rock which would be shipped out for use as aggregate on roads and railways.

It has been estimated that the work could leave a crater 2km long and 1km wide.