Top restoration award for Tarmac Southern

TARMAC Southern’s Berwick Woods Project near Rainham in Essex, which features London’s largest area of wet woodland, has won the top award –– the Cooper Heyman Cup –– in this year’s Quarry Products Association Restoration Awards scheme. The trophy was presented by QPA chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, in the presence of Planning Minister Tony McNulty MP, at the Association’s ‘Quarry Showcase’ event in London last month.

A total of eight sites each received awards at the event, which was hosted by BBC newscaster Peter Sissons and attended by over 350 MPs, civil servants, senior industry representatives and environmentalists.

Among the other winners, a Restoration Award with Special Merit was presented to Lafarge Aggregates for Whisby Nature World in Lincolnshire, a former sand and gravel working which has been transformed into a popular nature park and education centre.

The remaining awards went to: Hanson Aggregates for Brockholes Quarry, Lancashire; Tarmac Northern for Cheviot Quarry, Northumberland; Lafarge Aggregates for Waterford Heath, Hertfordshire; Woodhall Spa Sand and Gravel Co. for Kirkby Gravel Pit Nature Reserve, Lincolnshire; Tarmac Western for Carmel Woods, Carmarthenshire; and Hanson Aggregates for Forest Rock Wood, Leicestershire.

Commenting on the awards, QPA director general Simon van der Byl said: ‘Much of the land needed for quarrying is, in reality, only borrowed and the industry works hard to ensure that the loan is repaid with interest.

‘By returning land to agriculture of a higher quality or creating new environments that benefit wildlife, this year’s winners have made a truly imaginative use of restored land. But perhaps the one theme that has come through time and again is the fact that former quarries bring real enjoyment to local communities.’