A giant leap of faith in the quarry, and Yorkshire's Angel of the North (VIDEO)

Biddy Noakes is one of those irrepressible women who Gets The Job Done. You know the sort. You've probably met one. She's the woman who is picking up litter from the street in the morning, or organising the village art exhibition, perhaps raising funds for a community centre. The sort of person on which a community can thrive.

Often they have another trait: modesty. Which is why, while the community knows about them, the wider world often doesn't.

Fortunately, Biddy Noakes's latest project, and the one she and a host of volunteers in Pateley Bridge have spent four years planning and working towards, is too big to miss. A 500,000 sculpture on top of the Yorkshire Dales created by an internationally-renowned sculptor was always going to attract attention.

The sculpture, which might also be described as an "installation", is made up of a Tarmac road, complete with a futuristic-shaped roundabout which wouldn't look out of place in a city centre and two enormous spiral viewing platforms.

Constructed in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it was always going to be controversial.

Andrew Sabin is the artist in charge of the project. On a breezy, beautiful day looking down across Pateley Bridge and out towards Grassington, Sabin watches large machinery move into position the one-tonne boulders that are slowly becoming his vision.

Standing on the top of one of two spirals that are part of his sculpture, half completed and already very impressive, I ask Sabin to ponder the magnitude of what is being built. Not just the size of it, but how long it will be here.

"It's quite odd, really," says Sabin as he pauses for thought.

"I have made work previously that has a lifespan of, say, 20 years. But the way this has been built, well, it's going to be here forever. I don't mean a couple of hundred years. It's going to be forever.

"I have contemplated that idea of the artist fading while the object remains. Stonehenge was built thousands of years ago and we have no idea who built it. But the structure remains."

Coldstones Cut – the name of the sculpture – is also a testament to the

work of Biddy Noakes and the people around her. It was her energy and enthusiasm which inspired the project and has helped to turn an ambitious notion into a reality.

Biddy is member of Nidderdale Visual Arts (NVA), a Pateley Bridge-based artist collective. About four years ago, she heard that the Coldstones Quarry, on the outskirts of Pateley Bridge, had been granted planning permission to build a new man-made bund, a hill to hide the quarry from sight.

The bund would mean the 15-year-old viewing platform on the edge of the quarry would need to be pulled down. The planning permission was granted on the condition that a new viewing platform was erected.

Biddy approached Hanson, the company which owns and operates the quarry, with a different plan. Bob Orange, unit manager at Coldstones for Hanson Aggregates, says: "Biddy and the NVA came up with this grand idea that if we're going to build a new viewing platform, make it something special.

"We have a very strong relationship with the local area.

"A lot of the people in the towns around are employed at the quarry and we have a lot of contact with schools and the arts groups in Pateley Bridge."

Getting Bob Orange on board was a significant step. It was, however, far from the final one.

Today, there is much excitement as diggers lift enormous rocks from the quarry into position. The glee on the faces of those watching is similar to children on a school trip.

There is something about the scale of the place and the sculpture and watching it take shape that transforms the mood of the visitor.

It has, however, taken four years to get to this point. Having secured the backing of Hanson and Bob Orange, it was important to win over the Nidderdale Plus Partnership, a community regeneration partnership of local volunteers. Biddy says this was key in pulling the money together to fund the audacious idea of a huge work of art in the middle of the Dales.

The 500,000 required came from a number of sources. One was the Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund whereby quarry owners pay a tax on every tonne shifted which funds projects of benefit to quarrying area landscapes. Other financial support came from the Arts Council, Yorkshire Forward and Harrogate Council.

The artist's impression of the Coldstones Cut is accurate enough but cannot give a true sense of the place. That can only be experienced when the sculpture is opened to the public in September.

Bob Orange says: "This is a massive structure on a grand scale, at a great height. As you walk through it, there are very high walls on either side of you, so you feel quite closed in. But when you get to the end, you arrive at the viewing platform where you can see down into the quarry.

"You can also walk up one of the two spirals and get stunning views right the way over the Yorkshire Dales. On a clear day people will be able to see as far as West and South Yorkshire."

Once the money was in place, Biddy was able to approach an artist. She asked Penelope Curtis, then the director of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds for guidance.

"We wanted it to be an iconic structure," says Biddy. "Andrew was suggested to us as one of the few sculptors working today who is able to operate on this scale."

Trained at the Chelsea College of Art, he has exhibited around Britain and in Lisbon, Rome, Paris, with solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery, London, La Foundation Suisse, Le Corbusier and CREDAC d'Ivry in Paris.

And so to the difficult questions. Is it art, and what about all the controversy? Sabin looks sanguine at the questions. His projects have included building enormous mesh bins on beaches around Britain where people can deposit their rubbish. So he is practised at dealing with the issue of "where does a structure end and art begin"?

"It's a sculpture about the process of quarrying, the motivations behind quarrying," he says. Pointing down into the massive pit below, he adds: "It's about taking what is down there and making something from it up here. I hope it's accessible and exciting and it's a sculpture that people can climb on and engage with and hopefully it will provoke thoughts of being in a physical world where they are standing on something that has come from a hole in the ground."

But is it art? "It is 100 per cent art."

And the opposition to it? Today, it's not so easy to find someone who will speak out against. But during the two 18-month periods of public consultation this was not always the case.

"It's a massive statement piece in a beautiful area in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales," says Sabin. "For large- scale public realm sculptures, controversy is simply the way it is. If I had my way the piece would be even more visible, but working within certain constraints has actually been quite creative. I'm sure there will be controversy. It's a great big statement up here. But I'm also hopeful that we're going to have a lot of support for it."

Penelope Curtis, now the director of Tate Britain, will travel to Pateley Bridge on September 16 to conduct the official unveiling.

Even in a half-finished state the magnitude is awesome. The final word has to go to Biddy Noakes. "When we came up with the idea, we thought if there was going to be a viewing platform, instead of just a platform, why not have an amazing piece of art work," she says.

"I think we've got it."