Kevin Stewart MSP
Dear Mr Stewart,
Recently a planning application (15/00428/MIN) which had been rejected by North Lanarkshire Council due to the overwhelming objections from the local community and from politicians of all parties, was appealed by the company submitting the application. Despite the case having been clearly made by objectors that this development had serious health risks to the local community, that the increase in heavy traffic would have a detrimental effect to the environment, and would pose a risk to cyclists in particular, and that there was the possibility of a ground structural fault being disturbed which would put the public using the Lilly Loch in mortal danger, the Scottish Government Reporter has seen fit to override all these people and to grant permission to the company to begin operations.
I say begin operations with good reason, as it is my understanding that the company presented the case that it wished to continue operations at the quarry, even though operations ceased there in 2012, 4 years ago! If this is the case it is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts, and I would request that you use the powers available to call in this application and to rule in favour of the local community who have solidly rejected this project.
If I understand correctly, no other village in Scotland is sited in such close proximity to a working quarry of this type. There are no reasonable grounds for this to be allowed to go ahead and the people locally are strongly of the opinion that their SNP representatives and the Scottish Government have let them down badly on this. Your government would not permit fracking to take place so close to a community where people live and work, where new homes are being built. Are the children expected to grow up in the shadow of a quarry which will pour dust into their lungs on a daily basis, from morning until night? The health and welfare of the people of Caldercruix must take priority over the greed of big business, and I am calling on you to do the right thing, call in this application and consign it to the bin.
Yours faithfully,
James Cassidy
The Airdrie Rambler 
We have a working quarry in our village but don’t seem too affected by it. When they used to blast years ago, they must have used way too much explosive as, before you heard the blast, the houses used to shake and you nearly fell off the sofa. They must have stopped them blasting with so much explosive now though as, while you might sometimes hear it, you don’t feel it thank goodness.
Totally against fracking though and hope no-one gets the go-ahead for that.
The quarry was running for years and people were quite happy to see the back of it. New houses have been built, the village now has transport links directly with Glasgow and Edinburgh and it was becoming a better place to live.
Overnight they will see a return to blasting and dust, increased HGV traffic (100+ HGV’s a day which are in addition to the ones already running to the quarry a few miles along the road). A whole hillside will be gone, there’s a fault line which come down at any time when blasting resumes and the company destroyed a 3000 year old burial cairn while the planning application was in progress.
What’s NOT to like?
Bad that they destroyed the burial cairn! 😦