A new gypsum extraction facility will be developed on farmland north of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station after Nottinghamshire County Council’s Planning and Rights of Way Committee recommended the plans this month.
The plans have to be formally approved but are likely to be passed at the meeting next week.
The application by Saint-Gobain Construction Products Ltd — the company behind British Gypsum — allows for the temporary working of up to one million tonnes of commercial-grade gypsum over four years on a 35-hectare site off Barton Lane. Around 20 jobs are expected to be created on site, with a further ten haulage posts supported.
The quarry will operate Mondays to Fridays between 7 am and 7 pm and Saturday mornings, with no work on Sundays or Bank Holidays. Extraction will take place in two pits using low-intensity drill-and-blast techniques. The gypsum will be taken by lorry mainly to British Gypsum’s East Leake works, with some sent to its Sherburn factory in Yorkshire.
The decision means the mineral will be recovered before the land is redeveloped under Rushcliffe Borough Council’s Local Development Order for the wider Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station area — part of the East Midlands Freeport zone. The power station, which closed in September 2024 after more than half a century of operation, is being decommissioned ahead of major regeneration.
Planning officers told councillors the quarry was needed to avoid “sterilising” a nationally important gypsum deposit lying beneath land earmarked for new employment and research uses. With the closure of Britain’s last coal-fired stations, the by-product desulphogypsum once supplied from flue-gas treatment has ceased, increasing demand for naturally mined gypsum used in plaster and plasterboard manufacture.
Although the site sits within the Nottingham-Derby Green Belt, the council accepted that mineral extraction is one of the exceptions permitted under national planning policy provided openness is restored afterwards. The operation will be temporary and the land will be reinstated either to a development platform for future building or, if that does not proceed, to grassland and habitat areas.
The site lies close to Thrumpton village and within the setting of the Thrumpton Hall estate and conservation area. Heritage officers concluded that any impact would amount to “less than substantial harm”, outweighed by the public benefit of mineral recovery.
Environmental assessments accompanied the application under the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations. Rushcliffe Borough Council raised no objection, while Natural England confirmed that the scheme would not harm the Attenborough Gravel Pits Site of Special Scientific Interest, about 2.5 km away.
Conditions attached to the consent will control noise, dust and vibration, require monitoring of blasting to a maximum of 6 mm per second at the nearest houses, and secure a minimum 10 per cent biodiversity net gain through habitat creation. A section of public footpath (Ratcliffe FP9) will be permanently diverted to allow for safe working.
Local parish councils including Gotham, Thrumpton and Kingston-on-Soar had objected or raised concerns about traffic, air quality and vibration, and residents wrote expressing fears over noise, dust and the effect on historic Thrumpton Hall. County highways officers, however, judged the additional HGV movements to be minor and noted that most loads would travel a short distance to East Leake rather than through local villages.
Council planners concluded that the proposal met the Minerals Local Plan policies for gypsum supply and safeguarding, preserved the openness of the Green Belt in the long term, and included robust restoration and environmental safeguards.
Work on the new quarry is expected to begin in 2026, ahead of the full redevelopment of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station site later in the decade.