Locals call it the “Loxley alp”: a looming mound in one of the most beautiful valleys in Sheffield. As I walk up Long Lane towards Wadsley and Loxley Common, the earthwork rises like the foothills of a mountain, some 30 feet high. They’re meant to be building a golf driving range here. At the moment, it looks more like the surface of the moon.
I’m here with Joanne Lee, chair of the Friends of the Loxley Valley. Over the last two years, she’s seen this site change from lush green fields into the heap of dirt, brick, tile and concrete we now see before us. As we trek towards it, trucks carrying full loads to be added to the pile thunder past, making us take refuge on the verge for safety. The site is bordered by an intermittent line of scraggly looking leylandii conifers, presumably a half-hearted attempt to shield the tip from view. The plastic netting they were once wrapped in now lies strewn around the area.
As we reach the junction of Long Lane with Myers Lane, Joanne points out the road surface, broken up by the cumulative strain of hundreds of lorries. From 7am until 4pm most days, the traffic is unbearable, she says. (While I’m there, at least 25 pass in under an hour.) The company logos on their sides suggest they’re coming from miles around — Doncaster, Wakefield and Ripon — and many don’t have covers, meaning they spill mud onto the road. A street sweeper drives up and down the road trying to keep the dirt to a minimum, like Sisyphus with his boulder. I’m splattered by every vehicle that drives past.
Joanne says the work is a blight on one of the most beautiful places in Sheffield. “I’ve got friends who won’t come here,” she says. “From across the valley it looks awful.” It has been six years since planning permission for this big pile of dirt was granted, on the basis that it would be used to remodel the golf facility. Since then, however, locals have started to suspect the council was misled. Joanne feels that nobody is checking that the operators of the site are sticking to what they agreed. “It just feels like this is a long way from what was promised,” she adds.
Joanne isn’t alone. To many people in the Loxley valley, what was billed as the necessary precursor to a golfer's paradise is beginning to look like something different: a tip. This raises an important question. Did the owners look at waste and see a way of creating new, improved golf facilities in Loxley? Or did they have a golf course and see its potential for making a ton of money as a landfill?
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