Worcestershire | Archive | 2003 | November | 07
From the archive, first published Friday 7th Nov 2003.
HARSH things were said about quarrying when the Council for the Protection of Rural England held its conference in Malvern 50 years ago.
At the time, quarrying was still being carried out on the Malvern Hills.
Mr J C Cadbury, a member of Malvern Hills Conservators, told the conference: "In the hills here you have probably got some of the worst examples of desecration in the country. Scars are visible for long distances right across the plains of Worcestershire."
CPRE chairman Sir Patrick Abecrombie said that the value of the Malvern Hills and the extraordinary way in which they could be seen from long distances made them all the more precious to safeguard from quarrying.
The conference heard that a CPRE representative had recently given evidence at a public inquiry into the future of quarrying on the hills.
The inquiry's report did, to some extent, limit the "further devastation on the hills" but the CPRE would have liked it to go further.
As it turned out, it took many more years beyond 1953 before the last working quarry on the hills was shut down. The conference also heard about the problems of littering, with one CPRE official saying the English were "the dirtiest race in the world where littering is concerned".
Another member, Lord Merthyr, advocated the widespread planting of trees.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008