It is expected that within the three-year lifespan of the project successful demonstration plots will be established at the Penrhyn Quarry, Villar del Rey and Dan Morrissey sites. The first six to twelve months will be involved in the setting-up of the project, participatory socio-economic and landscape appraisal, environmental survey and assessment, selection of planting material and establishment of demonstration plots. The remaining 24-30 months will be used to monitor results on the establishment success of plants under each of the different conditions. The first 12 months will be based primarily at Penrhyn Quarry after which, demonstration plots will be set up at the European partner sites.

It is not envisaged that full semi-natural environments be recreated during the three-year project phase, but that the plots will start to show signs of accelerated plant natural regeneration and vegetation succession. From this 36-month study the value of innovative planting medium compositions, quantity and location and the way in which it needs to be varied in different environmental conditions will be demonstrated at North Welsh, Spanish and Irish sites. From our comparison of the success of tree/vegetation establishment in contrasting slate tip environments we will be able to make firm recommendations about the way in which future slate waste should be tipped/engineered to create an environment most amenable to restoration. During the three years, generic protocols for all stages of the restoration process including environmental assessment, selection of local and tolerant species and genotypes of planting material, site preparation and management, and monitoring will be developed and written up as a "best practice" manual in response to the need expressed by Gwynedd Council who are committed to disseminate these recommendations to all relevant planning bodies in the UK. This report will also be disseminated to all participating partners and will be published on the Internet.

A summary of the expected results is given below and on the following page:

With any site reclamation programme a number of factors can come into play to threaten the success of the project. Adverse weather conditions such as exceptionally strong winds and prolonged drought can pose a problem for the successful establishment of vegetation in a given area. However, this may be overcome in part with the polyacrylamide gel technology. In addition, the timing of the planting will be phased to minimize plant losses by this means. Other problems which may be encountered during the project may be caused by vandalism (including fire); the participatory nature of this project with local community, and the daily presence of McAlpine Slate staff in this active industrial site, should minimize this risk. If uncontrolled, sheep and rabbit herbivory can cause high mortality of tree and heather seedlings, therefore fencing and individual tree protection will need to be carefully monitored

The complexity of the site environment and its interaction with the different combinations of restoration methods may well make it difficult to make simple recommendations of universally applicable ‘best practice’. However, this reality (and thus the past failure of such prescribed methods) is a major justification for the systematic approach advocated by this project and the use of demonstration sites in North Wales, Spain and Ireland. The project team have the experience and expertise to manage, analyze and interpret the resulting multivariate results of the monitoring of the demonstration plots.

While it is known that some of the species selected for planting will establish fast enough to produce significant results within three years, it may take longer for the restoration success of others to be judged. Therefore, it is important that the project collaborators have already agreed to maintain the plots and monitor them for at least 10 years after the completion of the programme.

The main innovative features referred to above include:

The large scale restoration of quarry and post-industrial land in the absence of top soil has previously been undertaken with great difficulty and limited success. Previously undertaken restoration projects of this nature have focused on the use of commercial plant material, peat (whose extraction has adverse environmental impact) and high levels of fertilizers. This has resulted in low biodiversity habitats which are inappropriate for many rural European wide-area post-industrial sites, including Penrhyn Quarry. This project would enable the 9.6 km² of post-industrial land at Penrhyn Quarry to be restored as a major European example of a site of high biodiversity and amenity value within the next 30 years. This will directly benefit both the adjoining National Park and the local community. The economic costs of the method will be low with little maintenance required after the initial phase. The methods have been selected both to be low cost and to maximize the ecological resilience of the rested vegetation (thus minimizing costs of subsequent maintenance). Monitoring of environmental impact is an integral feature of the project. An additional benefit arises from the studies at the Spanish and Irish sites which will demonstrate the broad applicability of the restoration methods and these sites will serve as important permanent national examples of successful biodiversity restoration. The Spanish site is interesting because this site contains a similar substrate material to Penrhyn Quarry but enjoys very different climatic conditions. By comparison, though the Irish site contains a different, coarse, non-toxic substrate, the climatic conditions are similar to Penrhyn.

The methods developed and applied on this site will be of relevance to many other post-industrial landscapes throughout Europe (e.g. Spain, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the UK), especially post-industrial surfaces of coarse grained non-toxic materials and water limited environments. In addition, these technologies can be applied to any urban/civil engineering landscape where importation of topsoil is currently carried out for vegetation restoration (e.g. road schemes). Topsoil importation is environmentally unsound (e.g. transport costs and environmental impact) and technologies such as those proposed here may well offer a more cost-effective, ecologically resilient and environmentally benign alternative. The subsequent development of these sites by natural processes to sustainable semi-natural habitats of high biodiversity, conservation, landscape and amenity value will represent a major advance in environmental quality. The restoration of habitat types considered of significance at the Community level on post-industrial land will add a new dimension to land management and the planning of conservation, landscape and industrial heritage.