I was born in the area, lived here all my life and have been in business for over 40 years, operating within the constraints of the Peak Park. We are one of the larger employers in the area and qualified more than most to comment on the lack of local representation for both businesses and individuals and the real impact this has.

We are currently facing the closure of our business after the draconian measures and misguided actions of the Peak Park Planning Authority. This is further to a refusal of our section 73 planning application to extend the time period of the already approved and consented permission at Moss Rake, Bradwell.

Despite having an appeal granted, on Friday 13th June at 11.00am without prior consultation, an enforcement notice was issued to stop work from 4.00pm that afternoon. The mayhem caused has resulted in eight local people being laid off immediately, with more to follow as the Company faces being potentially sued for breach of supply contracts and enormous loss of good will from our customers.

Of the small number of local representatives present at the planning meeting when our application was heard, one had to withdraw from the meeting and declare an interest in that he "knew the applicant." Knew the applicant? In a community such as the Hope Valley, many people "know" each other, especially as in this case where both our families have lived there for a number of generations.

The gentleman in question has never done any business with me or ever been in my house as I can recall during those 40 years of business. On the very rare occasion I see him out and about we exchange pleasantries and nothing more. He was one of the few local representatives who would have had necessary understanding and experience of local quarrying and business and therefore whose opinions and questions would have been extremely valuable to the planning meeting for all parties concerned.

I highlight this as the situation must occur frequently and the point I make is that in real terms the local representation is even less than it would first appear in the statistics.

With regard to the closure of Moss Rake quarry and the whole planning debacle, there is certainly not the space here to go into the tedium of 23 months of trying to have a planning application heard and the subsequent ongoing appeal process we have in place.

Needless to say that there seems to be some curious interpretation of the original planning permission being used to substantiate the recommendation to refuse our application and hinder our appeal by the Peak Park.

However, there are always two sides to every story and we trust readers to make their own decision but to bear in mind that we have always employed professional planning consultants and specialists in planning law. It is their opinion that our application for the section 73 extension of time has complied with the requirements to vary an existing permission and should therefore have been successful.

It is also their opinion that having been refused, it stands an excellent chance of succeeding at appeal.

It is most interesting then that we have now been forced to close the quarry with devastating consequences which will effectively stop us from being able to finance the appeal.

Enough said.

Stan Sidebottom, Director
Netherwater Environmental Ltd