Where is Martins Creek Quarry

Martins Creek Quarry is located within the Dungog Shire local government area, immediately adjacent to and adjoining Martins Creek Village, approximately 4.7km north of Paterson Village and 26km north of Maitland. The quarry is one of seven quarry facilities that service the Hunter market.

The facility is unique to most other quarry facilities in the region in that it is located 26km from state arterial highways. The haulage routes shown below in red  are used by both Martins Creek Quarry and Brandy Hill Quarry operations. The road networks utilized by both facilities are classified by RMS as regional roads and traverse Dungog Shire, Port Stephens Shire and Maitland City Council boundaries. 

The roads are maintained by local councils and are intended to perform an intermediate function between local roads and state run arterial networks. These roads also traverse multiple residential, urban and rural communities that include Vacy, Martins Creek, Paterson, Tocal, Butterwick, Bolwarra Heights, Lorn, East Maitland, Woodville and Brandy Hills.

The existing quarry operation at Martins Creek Quarry consists of the eastern lot (Lot 1) which houses processing facilities and rail loading equipment and rail siding which is connected to the main northern rail line.

Lot 1 operates under existing use rights dating back to the early 1900's when the quarry was used for supply of rail ballast for rail line construction in the state. Under section 107 (2) (c) of the EP&A Act operations in Lot 1 under existing use rights are not permitted to be enlarged, expanded or intensified with out further approval.

The western lots (Lot 5 & 6) is the extraction pit area that was granted development approval by Dungog Shire Council via a consent issued in 1991. The approval authorized winning of 300,000 tonne per annum of rock for the primary purpose of rail ballast within a 5 hectare extraction pit with approximately 24 truck movements per day from the site between 7am and 5pm Monday to Saturday.

The current pit area is in excess of 40 hectares in size and in 2014/15 peaked an annual extraction at 1,100,000 tonnes without any new impact assessment on the environment or approval.

Both Lot 1, 5 & 6 are now surrounded by land use comprising of rural residential subdivisions and large lot environmental living zoned land.