QUARRY operators in Devon and Cornwall have launched a new fund to ensure high standards of restoration for quarried land.

Meldon Quarry near Okehampton, operated by Aggregate Industries PLC, and Hingston Down Quarry, near Gunnislake, operated by Hanson Building Materials Europe, are both members of the new scheme.

The Quarry Products Association?s Restoration Guarantee Fund provides local authorities and communities with a failsafe commitment to achieve the high standard of restoration required by planning permissions. The commitment would be honoured even if the operator became insolvent.

The fund will cover all rock, sand and gravel or silica sand operations within the membership and provide a £1-million guarantee to planning authorities against restoration default.

Simon van der Byl, QPA director general, said he recognised that some local authorities may, when granting a planning permission for a quarry, require the security of knowing they can ensure its ultimate restoration. ?This fund provides them and their local communities with an important safety net,? he said.

Mr van der Byl said the QPA were pleased to be able to demonstrate its commitment to ?sustainable quarrying? and said QPA members were ?keen to be good neighbours throughout the extraction process and beyond.?

The new fund takes over from one which previously covered only sand and gravel quarries operated by QPA members and now also encompasses both rock and silica sand operations. The original fund had been in operation since 1975, but had never been called upon.