Drilling could be set to return at a disused quarry between Fairlie and West Kilbride after plans were lodged to revitalise the site.

Biglees Quarry near Hunterston has been abandoned for several years and the site, close to the busy A78, is currently used for storing manufactured green aggregate.

The site, which has a total area of 1.25 hectares, sits within the Mainland Special Landscape Area the Glen Burn, and the Clyde Muirshiel Park.

Owners ASC Group, the world’s largest operator of volumetric trucks, has now lodged a planning application with North Ayrshire Council to resume drilling.

The green aggregate product is manufactured in Paisley from waste material, and requires to be stored and hardened before use.

Largs and Millport Weekly News:

Plans have now been lodged to extract stone from the quarry to blend with the aggregate, before being shipped out to market for use in concrete manufacturing.

Vehicle movements for the quarry would be around 12 per day, with plans to limit the impact of noise, vibration and air quality for nearby residents.

The company behind the plans has outlined how the rock at Biglees would be excavated through blasting and drilling.

The application states: “Due to the limited scale of operations, it is anticipated that blasting would generally only take place once or twice per year.

“Once blasted from the face, the fragmented rock would be loaded into a mobile processing plant to be crushed and screened to the appropriate size.

“The processing plant would only be present when required, therefore would only be on site for approximately six to eight weeks in any given year.

“Blasted rock would be loaded via excavator directly into mobile primary crushing plant at the face, and then would be fed by conveyor to the secondary crushing and screening plant.

“Processing produces aggregate to a size of between 5mm and 20mm, and this would then be blended with the manufactures green aggregate that is being stored in stock piles

“Circa 20,000 tonnes of primary aggregate and circa 20,000 tonnes of manufactures green aggregate would be blended per year.”

Although the site is located within Mainland Special Landscape Area, The Glen Burn Candidate SWT and the Clyde Muirshiel Park, the applicant believes there would be very limited impacts.

It said: “Views of the existing Biglees Quarry and the associated extraction faces are only possible from a very restricted geographical area.

“The proposal has been designed to maintain this restricted visibility with the retention of the hillside embankments to the west to restrict views of the extended quarry excavation.”

A restoration plan has been prepared for the site, which will restore the quarry to a nature conservation after use.

The full application can be found on North Ayrshire Council’s planning portal.