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In her monthly blog for Caerphilly Observer, Plaid Cymru Senedd Member for South Wales East, Delyth Jewell, talks about quarry concerns raised in the Senedd this week

Living near a quarry can seriously affect your health. Residents in Gelligaer and Penybryn, who live near one of these quarries, suffer every time there’s a blast from the site, with the dust that’s sent over their houses and cakes their cars in soot, as well as with vibrations in their homes, noise pollution, and unpleasant smells.  

This is why in the Senedd this week, I spoke in favour of a mandatory buffer zone being introduced, so that there would have to be 1,000 metres between any such site and people’s houses, or schools. I believe that this would vastly improve people’s quality of life.

The quarry is a constant worry for people living in Gelligaer and Penybryn. They worry about structural damage to their properties. Some of them have shown me the cracks they say appeared with the blasts.

They’re worried about how it could affect their insurance, and whether, now that the quarry has been extended, their homes could be devalued. But most of all they are worried about their children.  

One resident has written to me talking about how the machinery and the noise have woken her sleeping baby, how she has to keep doors and windows closed in the hot weather because of an ugly cliff face of pure dust. She fears for her children’s lungs.

Her other child, who is five, often speaks about the noise and the foul smell that comes from the quarry. She’s only glad that her five-year-old is in school when they blast, because the windows, the doors, and the crockery all shake.

She feels sad and angry. The air these residents breathe is affected by this dust.

I’ve long called for enhanced and independent monitoring of the air quality near these quarries. These residents are choking with the dust.

We have to see change. And most of all, we need a system that empowers local residents, not silencing them, which I’m afraid is happening too often at the moment.  

We need to change how these quarries operate, and curtail how closely they can be allowed to people’s homes – that is, where people live their lives and where they breathe every day.

I’m urging the Welsh Government to listen to the campaigners and the residents and to introduce a mandatory buffer zone. I will keep pushing this issue until we see change.