Clipsham quarry extension by Stamford Stone Company will create 30 new jobs

An extension to a Clipsham quarry site has been approved and will create 30 new jobs.

Stamford Stone Company’s application to extend its Clipsham Bidwells quarry site has been given the go-ahead by Rutland County Council. The announcement safeguards the existing stone supply from its Clipsham Bidwells quarry site for the next 30 years whilst also allowing the site to be extended.

Director Laura Green said: “We are delighted with the decision to let us extend the quarry by 14ha to the south of the site. This extension will provide an uplift in the local economy and will create up to 30 new jobs in the area over the next 10 years.”

Throughout the planning process, Stamford Stone has been in close consultation with local authorities and community groups to discuss the proposals and to provide all the surveys and reports required to fully evaluate a large-scale project like this. Full noise and dust surveys were completed, along with ecology reports reviewing localised bat and wildlife habitats and populations and archaeology and hydrology reports.

Laura added: “This project will include a phased restoration of the area, meaning that we will be focusing on restoring the local biodiversity within the areas that have been quarried.

“This takes the form of infilling the older sites and reintroducing the natural wildlife to the site, so that in time you will never know we have quarried those areas.”

The authorities have granted permission for the extraction of 500,000 tonnes of premium masonry block stone and 1.75 million tonnes of building/walling stone over the next 30 years.

Part of the project includes the creation of on-site production facilities which will reduce the movement of the quarried stone, which originally would all have had to have been transported via the A1 to the current production site at Helpston.

Laura said this would minimise disruption for local residents.

An environmental policy is also in place which recycles resources wherever possible and enhancing local biodiversity is also important for the firm.

Laura said: “Within the proposed extension site at Clipsham Bidwells, there is a patch of calcareous grassland that has been deemed a site of special interest and one, therefore, which we will, with the help of the experts, very carefully re-site.”

Stamford Stone acquired the Clipsham Bidwells quarry in 2018. Recently, Stamford Stone has been awarded two high profile contracts - its limestone has been specified for a new build project at the historical site of St John’s College in Oxford and for use on a new facade at the CUS and Trinity buildings in Cambridge.

The quarry extension works are due to start at the end of this summer.