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Hanson quarry bags key restoration gong

Intricate attention to detail has landed Hanson’s Otley Quarry in Yorkshire with this year’s Cooper-Heymann Cup, the key industry gong in the annual Quarry Products Association (QPA) Restoration Awards announced at this year’s Showcase event.

Hosted by Channel 4 newsreader Krishnan Guru-Murthy on 3 July, this was the seventh Showcase event to be held at Nine Kings Suite in London's Royal Lancaster Hotel. It is an event designed to show the best of the quarry industry.

The Restoration Awards are a cornerstone of the event. There were eight entries this year and all have secured an award of some form as happened both last year and in 2006. The reason for this is the growing quality of the entries, says the QPA.

It is an assertion backed-up by the judges, who all have local authority planning backgrounds. “Minerals firms should be proud of what they are doing,” chairman of the judges for the awards, George McDonic, told MQR.

He felt the Otley site was a particular success. It was restored in such a way that you do not feel you are in a former quarry, he said. But it was the attention to detail that eventually won it for Otley.

McDonic: “For example, they created a thin strip of water between two areas of the site which has created a dragonfly corridor. It is really something.

“They also built a bug hut about 1m3 and all manner of life uses it. They are points of detail that really show the care and attention taken at the site,” he said.

Winner of the Chairman’s Trophy this year was the high profile Eton Aggregates Dorney Lake. A 2012 Olympic rowing venue with cycle paths and facilities, a 35hectare nature conservation area including seasonal and permanent wetland, and a 46hectare park and arboretum.

QPA chair Lynda Thompson – who initiated the award three years ago to highlight projects she feels push the envelope in restoration – said the project jumped out at her as a sign of what the industry can achieve.

“Diversity and uniqueness are important. The Dorney Lake project more than meets these criteria. It is a world class facility created by the co-operation of the private, public and third sectors. It is so much bigger than the sum of its parts,” Thompson told MQR.

The other Restoration Awards winners:
  • Aggregate Industries’ Bestwall Quarry
  • Grundon Waste Management’s Frith End Quarry
  • Cemex’s Haywards Farm Quarry
  • Ayton Asphalt’s Lynford Pit
  • Tarmac’s Nosterfield Quarry
  • Lafarge Aggregates’ Stow Farm Quarry

 
 

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