A PLANNING row over re-opening a quarry has sprung up over locals’ fears it will lead to damage to roads near a coastal town.

Eskdale Stone wants approval for a five year time period to work at Carters Quarry, in the North York Moors National Park.

The site lies between Egton Bridge and Glaisdale and it is accessed by an informal forest track.

Locals to the site claim Broom House Lane and the sides of Egton to Glaisdale Lane were damaged by lorries to the quarry when the site was last open ten years ago.

They say repairs were never done and they fear further damage if the North York Moors National Park Authority approves the application.

A spokesman for Egton Parish Council, said: "It looks like the national park is going to go ahead despite our objections.

"The main grievance is that when the quarry was last open, about ten years ago, the roadsides were damaged and not repaired.

"The roads are quite narrow in places and they get damaged with heavy lorries."

The plot is a sandstone quarry on a 0.3hectare site which provided stone for the rebuilding of Egton Bridge in 1992.

Eskdale Stone, of Guisborough Road, Whitby, has said any future quarrying of the land would be on an occasional basis only.

North Yorkshire County Council’s highways department has asked for a road condition survey to be carried out before any lorries access the site.

The park authority states that the county council will then require the applicant to carry out repairs to any damage attributed to them.

Paul Craven, owner of Eskdale Stone, said: "We would only use the site on a part-time basis which could be one day a week and it’s nothing drastic.

"We don’t use lorries we use a tractor and trailer and we’d use the stone to carry out building work in the national park.

"We don’t cause any problems to the verge or roads and no-one has spoken to us about it."

The park authority’s planning committee is recommended to approve the scheme at its meeting to be held on Thursday, April 16.