Register here - as a registered user you get more features and fewer ads.
Eco-warriors campaigning against plans to reopen a quarry near Bakewell, Derbyshire, have lived in woods for four-and-a-half years. Reporter David Walsh joined them for the day
From Sheffield Today, 21st February 2004 with a photo of Paul the protester in his tree house.
PAUL slides carefully across a slender rope bridge to his home 70ft up a tree.
When he reaches the structure, complete with wooden door and glass window, he breathes deeply - and scents victory.
For the 28-year-old knows his treehouse, in woods below the Nine Ladies Bronze Age stone circle in the Derbyshire Dales, is just one of dozens of shelters, ropeways and tunnels designed to make anti-quarrying protesters fiendishly difficult to remove.
Then there is the tortuous terrain which includes 100ft cliffs and steep overgrown slopes littered with treacherous boulders. And the 38-acre size of site means any attempt to throw a cordon round the camp would require possibly thousands of security guards and cost a fortune.
Paul and another 50-odd eco-warriors are opposing plans by leaseholders Stancliffe Stone to reopen Lees Cross and Endcliffe quarries near Stanton-in-Peak outside Bakewell.
He said: "I have lived in some of the most beautiful places in the country and seen them reduced to holes in the ground, I'm determined that won't happen here.
"I don't think the quarry company fully understands the terrain, and the police aren't going to pull us out of the trees, this is a private issue and the company will have to bear the costs.
"If an eviction started significant numbers of people would come and many would get through. Our resolve never weakens, there's a reason why I'm here and it's because this place should not be destroyed."
The woods ring to the sound of hammering as the community builds its defences. It has also stepped up its watchfulness, gatherings of the entire group rarely occur for fear they will be ambushed and arrested.
Tension rose after Stancliffe Stone obtained a High Court possession order as a first step in evicting the protesters.
Work may start any day after April 2, the deadline for the Peak National Park Authority to announce what the operating conditions will be.
But there may be one last chance to avert a battle for the tunnels and trees.
The Peak National Park Authority is dead against the quarries being worked again and intends to offer Stancliffe Stone an alternative - permission to extend operations at Dale View quarry half-a-mile from the disputed site. The offer will be made at a meeting in less than two weeks.
If a deal is struck it would mean a stunning victory for the eco-warriors who have guarded the site for more than four years.
John Davies, head of development control for the authority, said he hoped Stancliffe would agree to 'trade' quarrying consents. He added: "We are determined to try to protect the character of the edges of Stanton Moor. It's an extremely sensitive site and a very important part of the National Park."
A victory would be welcomed by the camp's many supporters who keep protesters supplied with food, fuel and clothes.
Barbara Fox from the nearby village of Oker, and her daughter Keeva, aged 28, came with a bundle of clothes. The day before they brought wood.
Barbara said: "I support them because I'm opposed to greed destroying the landscape."
But in Stanton-in-Peak relations have soured and residents are fed up with having the protesters on their doorstep. Parish councillor Jonathan Reed, of Main Road, said some 90 per cent or respondents to a local survey wanted to see them gone following reports of anti-social behaviour.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road