QLA projects: Themes and topics that may be suitable for QLA scientific research and community projects could include:

  • studies on monitoring for early successional plant and invertebrate species and suggestions for appropriate new habitat creation within the quarry, including “temporary nature” on redundant quarry benches that would end up below final water level but still afford valuable habitat in the intervening period;
  • investigations of the aquatic habitats present within quarry sumps and how to ensure final lakes become valuable habitats in due course;
  • investigations and soil sampling of the low-fertility substrates of quarry waste and stockpiles of stripped soils and overburden that will be used for final site reclamation;
  • trial plots to investigate optimum restoration techniques and establishment methodologies on low fertility substrates, for calcareous grassland, woodland and scrub habitats;
  • use of the site by bats, as a number of roosts have previously been found within older buildings and structures on the site.
  • community projects could make use of the public spaces within Tytherington village where ash trees have become affected by Chalara die-back disease and need to be removed, and proposals are sought for their appropriate replacement.  

 

Description: 

Tytherington Quarry is a c.57ha carboniferous limestone quarry situated near Thornbury in South Gloucestershire.  The site comprises two separate excavations (Woodleaze and Grovesend) linked by a tunnel, there is a third excavation (North Face) to the north, however this is no longer within Hanson’s ownership. While the quarry had been mothballed during the recession years after 2008, it re-opened in 2019 and currently produces some 2 million tonnes of aggregates per year.  The quarry is linked to the national rail network via a tunnel under the M5 and supplies building products to rail depots in Oxfordshire, London and the south east of England, as well as the local market supplied by lorry.  The surrounding landscape comprises mainly agricultural fields, to the south east of the quarry is the M5 motorway and to the north west the A38.

In addition to the working quarry, the Company owns various plots of land within Tytherington village east of the M5 including the Jubilee Field playground and Coronation Gardens public open space leased to the Parish Council.

 

Habitat, flora & fauna description: 

There is a range of habitats across the quarry complex and the Hanson land ownership, including small pockets of species-rich calcareous grassland, native hedgerows, small amounts of semi-natural woodland especially in the railway cutting designated as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance, young and middle-aged tree plantations established along the motorway and roadside screen banks, and agricultural fields.

Few studies of the current flora and fauna have been carried out within the site so there would be great benefit from further site investigations and species monitoring of both the more established site perimeter habitats and sparsely vegetated and bare ground areas on remnant quarry benches and quarry waste tips. Peregrine falcons routinely nest on the safe and inaccessible rock faces even close to the working areas in Woodleaze.

The quarry sumps in Grovesend and Woodleaze offer a source of clean unpolluted water but perhaps little aquatic vegetation, though may or may not support unusual flora and fauna. The operational working areas need to be pumped dry but on final cessation of quarrying the groundwater will rebound to form large deep lakes with narrow lake margins and bare rock cliff faces above final water level.