Appeal launched over quarry storage plans

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

A rejected plan to store timber at a former quarry, which a council claimed could threaten a nature reserve, is being appealed.

The plans were rejected at the end of last year as it was claimed storing timber at the former quarry would create noise that would undermine the adjoining nature reserve while car and vehicle parking would have an “adverse visual impact”.

The proposal for the former Cwmynyscoy Quarry in open countryside, south of Pontypool and west of Griffithstown, prompted 11 objections including from Torfaen Friends of the Earth, the Friends of Cwmynyscoy Nature Reserve and the Gwent Wildlife Trust as the area is a Site of Importance to Nature Conservation or SINC.

The former quarry also forms part of the Cwmynyscoy Quarries West Regionally Important Geodiversity Sites.

Torfaen Borough Council’s planning department said the proposal was unacceptable and refused to grant planning permission.

During the application process the council also said the Hanbury Tenison family’s Pontypool Park Estate had threatened to withdraw a licence that allows the wider part of the former Cwmynyscoy Quarry to be used as a nature reserve, and would have forced its immediate closure, if permission was refused.

But that was denied by landowner Jack Hanbury Tenison whose family developed Pontypool Park before gifting it to the public. He said in January there is “no threat” from him to the nature reserve.

Mr Hanbury Tenison said the licence granted to the council has already expired and he is in talks with the council over its future but said while he wants the nature reserve to continue he was disappointed it was cited by the council as a reason to reject his planning application.

At the time he said: ““The council has created the problem saying the nature reserve is the reason for the refusal. If it’s not a nature reserve then they don’t have a reason to refuse, it seems a slightly perverse logic, why do we have to have an argument?”

The landowner said it is a “fact, not a threat” the current licence has come to an end but talks are continuing and said there is no intention to force the reserve’s closure: “We are all for the nature reserve and I can’t quite understand why the council has created this problem.”

Pontypool Park Estate has since lodged an appeal with Planning and Environment Decisions Wales, PEDW, against the refusal to grant planning permission.

Torfaen council has previously confirmed the lease on the nature reserve has expired and it is holding over under the terms of the expired lease and Pontypool Park Estates would have to give it six months notice to vacate the land, but hasn’t done so.