Albion Stone, who were given an award from the Crown Estates, whose land they work, in 2004 for moving into mining, have had their latest application to open a mine at Jordans Quarry rejected. Michael Poultney, the managing director of Albion, says the ridiculous thing is that his company already have planning permission to quarry the site. And, he says: "The objection from the local council was on the basis of noise!"

They said a generator on the site would operate at 70dBA. Not a problem in itself. But the council said when lorries were on the site as well the combination of noise would be intrusive.

Michael Poultney, whose move into mining was praised by the Crown Estate for its contribution to \'high environmental standards\' and \'improved working practices\' was astounded at the objection because quarrying would be noisier. Albion had applied to mine the site rather than quarry it believing it to be more environmentally friendly and less disruptive to the community.

It was not an entirely altruistic move because Albion also believe mining would increase the yield of stone from the site. However, Michael Poultney says if he is not going to be allowed to mine the site he will quarry it.

The application followed an agreement by the other company extracting stone from the Dorset island of Portland, Stone Firms, to sell land to the north of Jordans Quarry to Albion as an extension to the quarry. This gives Albion control of all the reserves on the northern part of the island.

This is only the latest of what are seen by quarry operators as perverse planning decisions regarding stone, in spite of the Symonds Report in 2004 and a change in planning guidance that, in Annex Three of MPS1 (the government guidelines to planning authorities) makes it clear that building stone quarries should be regarded differently to aggregate quarries.

Perhaps they are. Shortly after an application to open a dimensional stone quarry in Scotland was rejected an aggregates quarry was given consent to work the site. Or perhaps they\'re not. An application for a dimensional stone quarry extension in Yorkshire has just been rejected because it was felt that 70% waste - a fairly good proportion from a dimensional stone quarry - did not represent good \'sustainability\'.

Michael Poultney, who is deputy chairman of Stone Federation\'s Quarry Forum, complains about the increasing micromanagement interferrence in mineral extraction by local authorities and asks: "Will there be any quarries left in 20 years time?"