the quarry

Mon 18 Aug 2008, 17:49

I'd been too unwell to get out for a walk for some three weeks, and hadn't noted the extent to which access has been obstructed (though not too convincingly blocked) nor the overabundance of signs. And CCTV cameras?! I simply don't believe it! They have made their point about not accepting liability! Clearly the site is an area of "known risk" - if someone fell off the quarry face then they have nobody to blame but themselves. I would be very surprised if a court of law found in the claimants favour unless the company had failed due diligence for returning a quarry to nature by slipshod work, and I for one would be willing to make a statement to the court that permanent fencing off the site due to people hurting themselves in "known risk" activities should not mean eliminating access, but should in fact lead to its formalisation and limitation of liabilities by agreement with the local community in some guise.

Its the kids in particular I think of - they will lose an important resource. "We" mollycoddle children far too much nowadays from testing the bounds of risk and foolhardiness - it would be very difficult to break more than a bone on that terraced quarry face and the evidence from Denmark where they have truly challenging playsites with real risk elements is that children treat them accordingly and grow up much more mature and confident and capable of balancing pros and cons (and over a 5 year study of one particularly challenging site, had just a single fractured forearm, and that was falling over running on the grass!). So heart in mouth I've followed my 3 yr old (now 6) up the slope since moving here, poked about for crystals and fossils, looked for rare insects on the rare plants, and stood still and deer-watched at dusk, and he learned to cycle there (and fell off a few times - once into quite a large puddle...with no harm whereas on tarmac - ouch). And I see other kids climbing too and mountain biking around the slopes (and falling off as they learn what not to do!). We are letting them down as parents if we don't let them test themselves, we are putting our fears and "comfort" ahead of their growing character-building experiences, doing the sort of thing kids of my generation (in my mid 50s) did and the independence we had (but there weren't anything like so many cars then - its traffic that REALLY scares me for their safety). But I digress.

There have been plenty of other old quarries where there is de facto public access to the faces and old workings. In the absence of effective local council representation (and is it just my fading memory or wasn't there an election with some supposed "new blood" just a short time ago promising oodles about consultation and communications??) Jon Carpenter's suggestion that a Residents Association should be set up has great merit.

One of the first tasks of such a RA might be to negotiate permissive access to the quarry site with an explicit understanding that activities there are known risk undertakings. Clearly some residual responsibility for particularly hazardous occurrences like sharp spikes of metal eroding out of the ground from inadequately covered landfill capping, or the discovery of seriously toxic waste, would remain, but these are due diligence activities that the owners have as a liability in perpetuity anyway, and should have dealt with properly as part of the preparation processes, I should think.

Currently the ownership of the quarry by Curtis is nothing but a burden to them with the historical problems of a "brownfield" site, and specific exemptions from certain classes of liability would relieve them of some of those risks and potential costs - without giving them carte blanche to walk away completely from the fallout of many years commercial exploitation of the spot and any pollutants that may have accumulated over time.

Those issues of brownfield liabilities also impact upon the suitability of the site for development: the flat land at the top/north entrance must have been areas in which infrastructure buildings, chemicals, fuels and so forth were stored..? There would inevitably have been spills and pollution. By far the best course of action to take in potentially polluted sites adjacent to residential areas is not to develop it, but simply to leave it alone.

There are better strategic areas for development in Charlbury than this constricted zone with its transport access problems, distance from the rail station, and loss of potential amenity to the people of the town. I am not against town growth - it is desirable if well handled to create a better economic base for when the high cost of personal transport ends the "supermarket journey shop" and more local retailers become viable and environmentally necessary again in a decade or two (or less with peak oil and India/China growing apace). And is strategically desirable due to the town's rail link with major employment centres, which will increase in time the local circulation of money within the local economy when the "long distance road and air transport lunacy" (autistic) economics of the past couple of decades grinds to a fuel cost halt. But there are better strategic areas for development closer to the station and its future role as a transport hub once more.

As for the access restrictions: Well, the simple remedy for a community cut off from accustomed access is to take some direct action to clear the access points... unless they want to go to the cost of putting up a mile of 10-12 foot galvanised steel angle iron fence making the place look like Campsfield Prison, and blow a million or so quid! In which case repeated querrilla action will soon make the costs prohibitive.

Much cheaper to negotiate permissive access and demarcate areas of liability as has occurred in other areas. Or simply CPO the land. Given that it is nothing but a drain on revenue to the owners without being able to leverage some value from the site via development, and that most of the site is unsuitable for development anyway and thus will remain a liability in perpetuity, then they might very well be happy to "sell" it to "us" and give us a 5 quid note to pay the stamp duty on the contract to be shot of it. Especially if they don't get development zoning!

As for the litigant - name and shame unless it was something like putting a protruding iron spike through the foot out of improperly buried landfill which would always remain a due-diligence liability for the owner, it could potentially be argued, irrelevant as to trespass or not, landfill has certain standards that must be met, surely. That does not abrogate the potential for permissive access or CPO with residuary liability exemptions.

Parting shot: I grew up with Iroquis from the local reservation, and worked quite a lot decades back with "native peoples" on various campaigns. They thought us round-eyes were stark staring insane with the concept of "private land ownership" apart from some rights of an individual to peaceful enjoyment of the immediate surrounds of his dwelling (which did not mean "ownership"). They could find no meaningful and logical argument to support anything more than rights of use as granted by community and custom to limited areas. After more than 40 years I still agree with their reasoning! We are nuts!