Australian Resource Development Group has successfully obtained the green light for a major quarry development in New South Wales.
After nine years and countless hours, Australian Resource Development Group (ARDG), run by Damon Bird and Dr Justin Meleo, will be able to progress its Stone Ridge Quarry Project.
The major quarry project, located within the Wallaroo State Forest at Balickera, will provide a high-quality hard rock quarry resource to support the Lower Hunter, Central Coast and northern Sydney construction materials markets. The project has planning approval to produce 1.5 million tonnes every year of hard rock materials over the course of its initial 30-year period.
“The Stone Ridge Quarry project emerged from the key business driver underpinning the company’s establishment – namely to identify, prove-up and develop a strategically located, high-quality hard rock quarry resource in the Lower Hunter,” ARDG said.
“This project will be able to replace the mature quarry resources that supply the Lower Hunter, Central Coast and northern Sydney construction materials markets.
“We’re currently in the process of advancing the development strategy for the project. We’re also working with organisations that have expressed an interest in being involved with the development of the largest approved greenfield quarry resource in the Lower Hunter and Central Coast region.”
Long road
ARDG is no stranger to developing quality quarry resources. Since the company was established, it has located and obtained development approvals for 12 quarries which have supported the construction materials requirements of the Sapphire, Crudine Ridge and Rye Park wind farms.
It is also currently working on development approvals for two state significant on-site quarries which would support the Liverpool Range and Winterbourne wind farm projects in NSW.
Over the past nine years, the company has worked through site identification and selection, resource evaluation as well as the federal and state government’s approval processes for Stone Ridge Quarry.
In December 2024, the Independent Planning Commission of NSW approved the project, however, an objector appeal resulted in the project being sent to the Land and Environment Court of NSW (LEC) for determination. The LEC confirmed the planning commission’s decision and proceeded to approve the project in August 2025.
Located 25km north of Newcastle and 1.3km west of the A1 Pacific Highway, Stone Ridge Quarry has long been a site of interest.
In the early 1990s, Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) completed preliminary drilling which confirmed the existence of a hard rock resource in Wallaroo State Forest. FCNSW gathered more information over time, realising the importance of the resource to future hard rock supplies for the Hunter Region. An extensive expression of interest and competitive tender process was developed from 2009, however, ultimately no proponents were prepared to invest. The project lapsed for several years before ARDG approached FCNSW about exploring potential quarry sites in the Wallaroo State Forest.
“We carried out an exhaustive assessment of quarry resource opportunities in the Lower Hunter region in 2017, that extended to the purchase of land considered to have potential for quarry resources” ARDG said.
“One area of interest to ARDG was the former Hamburger Hill site, or what is now known as Stone Ridge Quarry. We undertook comprehensive negotiations over the next 18 months with FCNSW. A formal agreement was finalised that enabled ARDG to undertake quarry resource investigations, and if feasible, seek planning approval to develop the site.”
Detailed approach
The time between 2017 and 2019 proved to be critical to the success of Stone Ridge Quarry as ARDG carried out an intensive testing process to validate the quality of the resource.
This included a comprehensive quarry resource assessment program which included: extensive surface geological mapping and sampling, high-resolution ground magnetic surveying to define geological units and structure, approximately 1800m of diamond core drilling, downhole geophysics, exhaustive multiparameter geotechnical testing on multiple bulk samples of diamond core, resource modelling and staged extraction design.
The geotechnical testing proved the resource is suitable for producing a broad range of quarry products including:
- High polished aggregate friction value asphalt and sealing aggregates
- Coarse and fine concrete aggregates
- Armourstone and Gabion
- Roadbase and crushed rock products
According to the developers, the site has proved reserves of 50.56Mt (to be accessed in the first approval period) and additional measured resources of 80Mt, with further potential to increase the resource base through additional drilling.
“The standard of the resource assessment and testing program undertaken across the site exceeds the typical level of investigation undertaken by proponents of quarry developments in Australia,” ARDG said.
“The resource assessment confirmed the existence of a very large hard rock quarry resource, that greatly exceeded FCNSW’s earlier resource estimates.”
The project, which has been deemed to be of state significance due to its scale and annual production limits, required an exhaustive approach by ARDG to negotiate the long road from testing to planning approval.
This included the company engaging a series of specialists, including consultants and legal experts, to navigate this road as they consulted State and Commonwealth government agencies, the local council and the local community.
“We made a decision early on in the process to only engage highly experienced consultants to manage and undertake the various specialist planning and environmental assessments and to ensure that no shortcuts were taken,” the company said.
“While cost control of this aspect of the Project was important, ARDG’s philosophy of addressing issues by ‘hitting a walnut with a sledgehammer’ and ‘getting it right the first time’ was considered far more important than getting it done for minimal cost.”
The site’s unique location in the Wallaroo State Forest at Balickera provided some advantages as being situated in this spot meant the site was relatively isolated from residential areas and the local community.
“We had the freedom to design the project to optimise the layout of the site, including the staging of resource extraction, to minimise operational costs and the disturbance footprint of the project,” the company said.
“Minimising vegetation clearing was an important consideration, despite the project being located in a section of forest that is highly disturbed from historical logging activity and with low current economic timber value.”
Following the LEC’s approval in August 2025, the company is now in the process of obtaining secondary consents and licences prior to the commencement of site construction and operations.
“Despite the project’s somewhat tortuous and protracted planning process that ARDG successfully negotiated, the company’s decision to ensure that every aspect of the project, no matter how small, was subjected to rigorous testing, assessment and justification, was ultimately vindicated by receipt of planning approval for a quarry that will underpin development and growth in the Lower Hunter, Central Coast and northern Sydney regions for decades,” the company said.
“The project’s close proximity to the A1 Pacific Highway will enable quarry products to be supplied to market without the need for heavy vehicle traffic to use transport routes that would directly affect rural and residential communities.”
The project will also benefit from a recent development approval for a road intersection upgrade to enable safe access onto the Pacific Highway for quarry trucks associated with the three quarry operations in the Balickera area.
This upgrade will be jointly funded and utilised by the three quarry operators prior to Transport for NSW constructing a grade-separated interchange to address existing intersection safety concerns along the Pacific Highway.
The company said it is looking forward to advancing the next stages of the Stone Ridge Quarry project.
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