It may come as surprise, but there are 14 quarries in Leeds and dozens of waste management facilities. Although over half a million tonnes of aggregate are produced Leeds is also a big importer of crushed stone, in particular from the region's national parks. It takes around 40 tonnes of aggregate just to build one typical family house. Leeds is however self sufficient in bricks and building stone !
There is of course a price to pay for exploiting the local mineral resources of Leeds. For one thing large holes are produced and some sites are used for tipping. The disturbance and traffic can sometimes affect local residents.
Trends with waste
For the near future the majority of waste produced by the people of Leeds and local commerce will continue to be landfilled. But the tonnage of materials being recycled in Leeds is increasing. This is mainly in response to a high tax on every tonne of waste that is sent to a landfill site. The council plans to build an energy from waste plant to help it deal with household waste. However three quarters of all waste is collected from homes, shops, offices, factories and building sites by the private sector.
In future years more land and buildings within urban areas will be needed for processing, treating and recycling waste as an alternative to landfilling it. The challenge will be to make sure this doesn't cause a nuisance.
Needed but unloved
Proposals to open new mineral workings or waste management sites in Leeds - although not very frequent – can be difficult decisions for the council. On the one hand society must have minerals for construction use and also be able to dispose of its waste. But on the other, few people welcome having a site near where they live. For this reason when sites are given the go ahead they are subjected to tight environmental controls.
Some companies have become expert in minimising the impact of their operations. Once someone telephoned the Planning Department to ask when an opencast coal site that had been given permission was going to start. "What do you mean start?" was the reply, "It's finished".
Creating new landscapes
Quarry, opencast coal and landfill sites in Leeds are often restored to a beneficial use without any trace of their former life. Instead they can be recognised by features such as the new fencing, fields, tree and hedge planting, ponds, reed beds and even lakes. In fact such sites restored over the past 30 years are now making a big contribution to the biodiversity of Leeds e.g. water birds and butterflies at Otley gravel pits and great crested newts in ponds at several sites. Skylarks which are declining nationally on farmland are increasingly seen on restored sites in Leeds.
There can also be benefit for people in the changed use of a site, for example in the miles of extra footpaths. In may areas the leisure use of the countryside has been extended due to the restoration of mineral and waste sites. e.g. 9 hole golf course at Tingley, angling at Methley and three new sports pitches at Oulton
Everything of a planning nature to do with minerals and waste - see Facts and Figures - at the council is dealt with by the Minerals Team. If you have any queries regarding the services we offer or you wish to contact us, please feel free to email us using the link below or call us using the contacts that can be found in the FAQ page below.
Facts and figures
In a typical year, Leeds has:-
- 13 quarries
- 2 large refuse tips
- 3 inert waste tips
- 1 opencast coal site
- Several sites being restored to green use
- 11 household waste recycling sites (council operated)
- 22 waste transfer and recycling sites
- 8 secondary aggregates sites
- 2 waste incinerators
- 32 scrapyards