I was "looking through the hedge" earlier and work has cracked on at a very serious pace. A number of workings/shafts have been investigated/plugged.

It will be interesting to see when the work starts on the potential bat habitat influencing ones.

I assume that all the planning permissions and fuss from the important and concerned bodies amounted to nothing and it will go ahead as planned.

Let's see eh?

I was walking my dog along sawmills lane and looking through the fence, saw this.

🔗HALLENBEAGLE-Mine-User-Album-Image-77441[linkphoto]HALLENBEAGLE-Mine-User-Album-Image-77441[/linkphoto][/link]

I'd say that the building might get updated a bit. Perhaps to a 3000 square foot industrial unit.

Agreed! So much for the bats and heritage.

To bring this right back to the top again.

It would appear to me that the shaft and the other one next to it (which ventilates) are about to be capped in the immediate future. They have removed half of the tip already.

A while ago, we were shocked to notice the metal cage had been wrapped with a tarpaulin (presumably in order to keep bats out). I have subsequently gathered from "someone" on the council that the environmental shebang relating to the shafts was either missing or incomplete. I have informed the local bat people and EA as well as Natural England about this and it appears that things are about to go ahead as normal.

So, you have an open shaft with bats in it where the relevant authorities have been totally informed and made very clear about the situation and are looking very like plugging the whole place under meters of C30.

This sets an important precendent. What is clearly good for the council is perhaps clearly good for the rest of us. So, when a developer buys a piece of land with holes on it, with creatures residing in them, he is free to concrete everything up and build whatever he likes, or is the wrath of law only for private individuals?

I remember a similar crusade at Tresavean and Penstruthal, where bat castles were fitted to the main open shafts for the same arguments.

They were going to plug the lot.

I thought it was a very serious offense to plug a bat roost. I wonder where that misconception arose?

Many people may not realise this but it is possible under English law for a private individual to commence a criminal prosecution. This has been done in the past were evidence was presented to the police but they decided not to act. Nowdays of course it is CPS who bring criminal prosecutions to court.

My advice is to gather as much evidence as possible of the bat presence and then see what they do.

---

Is this the planning appl. you mean or are there several others?

http://planning.cornwall.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=M7CYY1FG1H900 


The Environmental reports and the CWF trust report just say the following:

"The documents tab at the top of the page may show details of the response received. However for historical planning applications not all cases have electronic documents available to view."

However they are buried here:
http://planning.cornwall.gov.uk:8181/rpp/index.asp?caseref=PA12/06846 

IS this the right planning application referred to above? :confused:

---

From:-

http://planning.cornwall.gov.uk:8181/rpp/showimage.asp?j=PA12/06846&index=11567184&DB=8&DT=4 

I quote:-

Derelict Mine Workings
9.104 Two mine shafts are located within the survey area. It is reported that all mine workings are capped (Spalding Associates 2002).

Wrong.

9.105 Neither of the mine shafts is suitable for use by bats. They are assessed as of negligible value. The engine house, which is located outside of the application site area, is used as a nesting site by birds. It is assessed as of site value.

Wrong. This is totally inaccurate. One open shaft does have bats in it and is further ventilated by adjacent shafts. Also, why did the survey not report the tarpaulins which were placed over the shafts?

Bats
9.107 No bats were seen using the shafts on site; these are capped and unsuitable for bats. It is considered that there are no roosting bats in any of the shafts on site.

They "considered". So, there was an open shaft, allegedly without a tarpaulin over it and someone came along and "considered" there were no bats on it. Come on man, who employed these people. Jeez. To recap ALL OF THE SHAFTS ARE NOT CAPPED. DID THIS PERSON HAVE A BLOODY MAP OF THE PLACE, OR WERE THEY JUST WALKING AROUND IN CIRCLES?

9.108 All bats are listed as European Protected Species and receive protection in law so that it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly damage, destroy or obstruct a place that bats use for shelter or protection, or disturb a bat while using a roost. It is illegal to intentionally kill, injure or capture bats or to deliberately disturb them. It is also illegal to damage, destroy, or obstruct access to bat roosts.

no **** sherlock!

I gather that they are supposed to follow a specific method of doing a survey. Rather than sending some fuckwit around there with a clipboard who had a walk around before going for an ice cream at Porthtowan.

One of the people who is "something to do" with the planning process aired this concern and added that "documents appeared to be missing". These concerns were aired and I have correspondence relating to such.

From what I can make out , the Bat survey seems to have been done one evening in June 2001 by Spalding Associates with a Bar detector.....

So is this relevant to shaft plugging in 2012?

Stiffy may know more, but from the little I know, some bat surveyors try to use a remote camera on a sled if they can to check for evidence of Bats in the shaft.

---

You won't see anything down the shaft as the bats (and piles of guano) are slightly in the levels.

There is a 120ft shaft to a choke (sawdust). There are levels off at -80ft -90ft and about 110ft. The bottom level is extensive and goes off one way towards a shaft towards the pub (you go under this) and the airflow indicates this is not capped properly. Going the other way, the air gets worse and you get to the footway shaft right by the railway, the level continues.

When we went down there last, there were bats in the 80ft level towards the engine house....the smaller ones. We also found a bat skeleton.

Oddly enough, when this survey was allegedly done, it might have appeared that the shaft cones were wrapped with a tarpaulin. (Why was this?)

Can you reference the literature which refers to the bat survey?

I remember another piece of literature where "the eco people" referred to the shaft as being "too small for bats to circle". matey from Cornwall bat group agreed this is rubbish.

I can go up there now with a video camera and show that it is a bat roost.

I would like to see their official report (not someone's opinion, or someone tossed a coin, etc) that there are not bats in there, because we have been in there enough times and there were bats in there then. Whether that is the case now should clearly be a matter of utmost importance.

As I've previously said, I'm not some anti-capitalist yoghurt weaver, I merely think that Cornwall should practice the "what is good for the goose is good for the gander".

This appears not to be the case.

This "discrepancy" was being looked into by several important people at the council and elsewhere.

Judging by what the big yellow machines are doing up there right now, it would suggest that either they found all the paperwork and there is no problem* or they are merely ignoring it, knowing that they are the people who get upset and they might have decided to not get upset or make a fuss about this. (for the sake of a couple of batcastles FFS)

* What I imagine is meant by a problem is that there is no problem, because there isn't, right? There are no bats in there and that is that because we say so.

My arse!

They have clearly gone over every atom of the projected impacts, PPM's of every imaginable compound, the this and that and the other. Their planning thing is fantastic and very thorough.

Apart from the bats in shafts bit which isn't.

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking "Why is this?"

I would like someone in a position of authority to either explain why in this case it:-

1. is fine to go plugging a bat roost.
2. appears they are going ahead with a survey which seems to have been undertaken by someone looking out of the window of the pub across the road.

As their own report says, they are totally aware of the legislation regarding bats and habitats.

It also appears that there are more bits of paperwork relating to this than you can shake a stick at, with Cornwall Mining Services appearing to submit half of an engineering book. God knows what that was all about.

Anyway, if this cannot be resolved by asking them a senisble question, perhaps someone at the West Briton or similar would like to take up the challenge. After all, I can assure you they know exactly of the concerns there are with bats in that shaft and if they go ahead with the plugging, the buck will stop with someone.

9.105....It is assessed as of site value.

I don't want to dissect the whole quote, but for starters, what does that actually mean? Is it even English?

Just shows that nobody reads this stuff properly or they would be questioning this sort of bollox and sending their staff on Adult Literacy training.

Following an email from Mr Kernowbats, it appears that the Police do not take bat habitat complaints seriously and the council have relieved their ecologist of her job.

It would appear that it's business as usual then.

As far as shaft surveys go, ie. cameras down shafts, the vast majority would show no bats at all.
Take for example Cligga. If you were to drop a camera down Contact shaft, all you would see is rock and bits of old shaft furnishings.
Now walk off into the workings and start counting; I've counted upwards of 75 on more than one occasion.
Bats also have a habit of using a roost for a while and then moving on only to return to the roost again at a later date, for whatever reason be it weather, local food source, air pressure, whatever it is I,m sure they have valid reasons for their behaviour.
It would make perfect sense to keep any shaft open to offer bats an extended choice of roosting sites. Surely if there are laws to protect their being, then there should be the same to support possible roosting sites. Cornwall has a large population of Greater Horseshoe bats, a species which is in rapid decline in other parts of the UK
We've seen too much of this 'make it go away' culture in Cornwall, and by playing pass the parcel with the paperwork, there seems no likelyhood of it changing.
I worked as a site investigator for a mining services company, and some of the conversations I witnessed between officials, displayed uniform indifference to the subject.
Nesting birds on the other hand were a different case alltogether, and work would be stopped to allow them to fledge....;but then you can see them can't you.

---

So, no official ecologist! I guess the tea lady just had her job description extended :angel:

---

"Our man" hinted that there were changes afoot.

We shall see. I heard that many people were throwing spanners in the works, mainly from a NIMBY point of view.

All this EU superprojekt stuff is inevitable and will happen anyway, despite the best made case otherwise, however, there is no need to go cutting corners in this manner.

I wonder if the same applied at Cardrew. (no batcastles there).

As I've said before, my own selfish hobby means that I'd like to see access retained to the place. It is fascinating and we've only just scratched it.

However, there is no law about preserving underground history. There is one about bats and in this case, it seems that since no-one is prepared to take this criminal activity seriously, it may as well go un-noticed.

I know that in this part of Cornwall, most laws are optional, but it seems bizarre that the council themselves are prepared to knowingly step over the line. Nuts.

Using the link to the report posted by Stuey:

Results of site assessment for bats on land. Spalding Associates (Environmental) Ltd.
The areas around accessible mine shafts were surveyed for bats on the evening of the 20th June 2001 using a bat detector.

Table 9.1 P209 Ch9 p9

See also 9.214

But no worries they are putting "bat boxes" up according to the report. I guess these are next to the Squirrel boxes and the dormice boxes above the man made natural habitat pond?? 😉

Apart from the exploration point of view, with many experts still saying there is still Tin to be mined economically in Cornwall, leaving a shaft secure but accessible might pay dividends in the long term....

I guess the shaft Camera is the best they can realistically do without disturbing bats too much and additional info to the bat detector.

---

9.105....It is assessed as of site value.

I don't want to dissect the whole quote, but for starters, what does that actually mean? Is it even English?

Just shows that nobody reads this stuff properly or they would be questioning this sort of bollox and sending their staff on Adult Literacy training.

"slight value" perhaps? :confused:

Strangely when I tried to access reports today from planning application site got this:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01a8'

Object required: 'documentElement'

/rpp/searchresult_insert.asp, line 421

It was fine yesterday! The plot thickens.....

Ah 1 hour later and its working! THe county hall file server must have been switched to save taxpayers money!

---

Some interesting non-developments up here.

1. The railway track was "on the move" a few months ago.

2. They have completed the repointing of the whim house/stack remains. However, they haven't done anything at the engine house. They drilled the shaft but didn't formally plug it....backfilled.

3. The work on the W Site has started, but nothing to do with the venting shaft and the open shaft (the one with bats in).

I wonder what their plan is.

A thought for the future.

Every time one ventures underground log the number of bats encountered and where.

As an example there is an on going thread on the members only section of the Plymouth Caving Group website doing just that.

In the event of future adverse developments you can then quote chapter and verse.

As an aside it does wind me up that no official archaeological value is placed on the underground environment. :curse:

We already did this. Lots of people made a fuss, key people in planning raised the issue. One (the environment lady is no longer employed by them) and everything has fallen on deaf ears. The shafts have been open a good couple of years since they were mysteriously tarpaulined over.

I'd say they are going to plug then and no-one will make a fuss. What are the council going to do, take themselves to court and win/lose?

If it was a 10ft deep pit in your garden, the CAU, the bat officer and environmental reports would be swarming over the place. It seems their projects are exempt from historical and environmental considerations.

As I have previously commented, one of the KEY people in CCC (who is no longer working there) noted that parts of the environmental study were absent.

Again, this has all fallen of deaf ears. It seems no-one is prepared to make a fuss. End of story.

I merely wondered why they have not continued with their rate of vandalism in the name of more industrial units which Cornwall really does not need, unless they are (£3/ft^2)/A