Communities

Environment and Nature 2021

“Crown Farm Quarry is locally important for some of Cheshire’s rarest wildlife; in many cases it is now the last stronghold for many plants and invertebrates that would be extinct in the county. Constant collaborative work to bring wildlife back has made the restoration of the sand quarry not just a haven for nature but also a place of engagement for people.”

Kevin Feeney, Senior Living Landscape Officer for Cheshire Wildlife Trust

Our work at Crown Farm Quarry to safeguard and enhance biodiversity and protected wildlife in the area won high praise from a leading conservation body. Judges at the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) BIG Biodiversity Challenge Awards honoured Tarmac and partners Atkins with ‘highly commended’ in the category for enhancements with a long-term benefit for biodiversity.

Working alongside Cheshire Wildlife Trust and Atkins, Tarmac ensures that once extractions are completed at the quarry site the land is then restored to its original state or better. Ongoing since 2003, the project team has rewilded vast areas of the partially restored site.

The North West Materials leadership team enjoyed a day’s volunteering with the Cheshire Wildlife Trust at our Crown Farm Quarry. We have a partnership with Cheshire Wildlife Trust at Crown Farm, with the trust managing the restoration plan for the areas of the site where sand and gravel extraction has been completed.

The day activities involved timber removal and processing of trees that had been felled during the winter, along with the creation of a wood chip footpath along the edge of one of the lakes to help with access for school groups.

2021 was our second year of a ten-year partnership with Clapham-based Yorkshire Dales Millenium Trust (YDMT), Tarmac supported the planting of another 1,800 trees in the Yorkshire Dales as part of their ‘People and the Planet’ initiative. The partnership will also see the education and development of 2,500 people and the completion of a staggering 7,700 hours of volunteering.

The initiative has also already seen a small group of volunteers remove hundreds of redundant tree tubes from Bargh Wood near Stainforth last year and that work continued in Grassington and the planting of 1,800 trees in 2020.

Richard Kirwin, Area Director at Tarmac said: “The team at Tarmac were very excited to get back out into the Yorkshire Dales to support the YDMT with the important work they do to protect the national park. The ‘People and the Planet’ initiative is something we are very proud to be involved with and we are looking forward to taking part in more volunteering activities throughout the year.”