Sandstone quarriers Stancliffe have lost their appeal to re-open a quarry in the Peak District National Park under the conditions of its 1950s planning permission.

However, they say the ruling will not affect the supply of their stones.

The site - on the footprint of two previous quarries, Lees Cross and Endcliffe - has been occupied for the past four years by a group of protestors living in tunnels and tree houses who want to prevent the resumption of stone extraction from the site.

One of their objections is the proximity to the quarry of a circle of bronze age standing stones known as the Nine Ladies.

The presence of the stone circle and the squatters has raised the profile of the debate over the quarry and the issue has been aired both by the BBC, locally and nationally, and in newspapers.

Stancliffe, owned by Halifax-based company Marshalls, maintained that the planning permission granted in 1952 did not expire until 2042 and that they could resume operations to extract the 3.2million tonnes of reserves of Stanton Moor sandstone without having to obtain further planning permission, which would inevitably include considerably more stringent environmental and operational restrictions than had been imposed in the 1950s. The basis of their argument was that the quarry remained active.

The Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA), on the other hand, argued that the quarry was redundant and that they were entitled to place restrictions on operations there before they resumed.

Stancliffe took the PDNPA to the High Court to challenge its decision, but in June last year the High Court reached its decision that it could not overturn the PDNPA\'s decision that the quarry should be considered redundant.

Stancliffe said then they were in possession of robust legal opinion that they had a strong case for having the quarry classified as active and appealed against the decision. But in June this year the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court\'s ruling.

Stancliffe general manager Mike Jones says that Stancliffe\'s preferred option now is to extend their existing Stanton Moor sandstone operations at Dale View by two to three hectares rather than re-open the Lees Cross and Endcliffe sites. "If we can get permission for that extension we would revoke our rights to the other two sites," he told Natural Stone Specialist.

He added: "Securing future reserves is a long term business planning process and last year we put the wheels in motion for an extension to Dale View in order to secure reserves in years to come.

"Our commercial priorities are safeguarding the jobs of our 68 employees and ensuring continuity of product without disruption for our customers. That\'s why we are ahead of the game in planning our reserves and our customers can be completely confident of continuity of supply."In addition to supplying Stanton Moor building stone, we also operate a number of other quarries and process stone from other locations at our Grangemill site. We will continue to offer all our customers excellent service and a wide range of high quality products while we progress our Dale View extension planning application".

Stancliffe held a pre-consultation event with local residents in Stanton-in-Peak on 1 July to explain their intentions.

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