What are the effects of aggregates production on natural and built heritage?
In England there are currently 15 World Heritage sites, 18 300 Scheduled Ancient Monuments, 370 000 Listed Buildings, 272 000 hectares of National Trust Land, 9000 Conservation Areas, and 1 300 Historic Parks and Gardens. While the status assigned to these known-cultural assets has usually protected them from site based quarry processes, quarry processes beyond the extraction site can adversely affect them. Increased traffic, noise, dust, emissions, and disruption to public access are all effects that can occur beyond the extraction site through quarrying related activities and that can compromise the physical fabric, amenity value and visual and cultural setting of these assets. The structural integrity of upstanding historic buildings and monuments can also be potentially affected by vibration from quarry blasting and by wetland site dewatering which can cause significant ground settlement and subsidence in surrounding areas.
