I am glad I am not the only one to choke on my tea when I heard this! Always the same in this country just look at thatching, Norfolk water reed anyone......no eastern european will do!

The planners should have more of a say in this although from my Local Government experience they can be the worst! Take a town in the east of England, we need bollards cast iron or granite.....yes granite from China. What has Chinese granite got to do with the architecture of eastern England!

I worked in a large office building a few years ago that was roofed with Asbestos free Slate effect tiles, over the years some went white!

One last point I drive a British car, Land Rover 90 for me! 😉

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I seem to remember a caase being mentioned on here a while back about some repairs to the Houses of Parliament, where rather than using the same stone as the original the contractors thought they could get away with using something that looked the same, not realising that it had very different chemical and hence erosional properties.....

I do think it would be great if we could have discretional import tarrifs on a lot of things coming into the UK that could be dropped where it could be proven the goods or materials were produced under a similar regulatory burden to a UK producer, but I doubt any government would ever have the nerve to do that!

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It wasn't so long ago that they were intending to truck granite from Portugal to the top of Snowdon for the new summit cafe.

In the end, after much protest, it was sourced locally. From a slate quarry no less...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/5320324.stm 

The new visitor centre and cafe will be built during 2007
The walls of the new building on top of Snowdon will be built from Welsh granite, it has been confirmed.
It follows controversy over an earlier decision to use stone imported from Portugal for the roof.

The Snowdonia National Park Authority decision to use a local supplier will add £56,000 to the £8.3m costs.

Chief executive Aneurin Phillips said 60% of the contract will now come from Wales, which was "quite an achievement" because of the unique location.

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Its not always price differentials that result in this sort of thing; sometimes its inappropriate specifications. An example with a Gwynedd resonance is the rock armour alongside the A55 at Penmaenmawr when the road was built in the 1980s. The dimensions specified for the two classes of stone resulted in not only Gwynedd quarries being unable / unwilling to supply but also no other UK or Northern Ireland quarries being able / willing to supply. In the end the rock armour - well over 100,000 tonnes - was mainly brought by barge from Norway though some of the smaller dimension backfill materiaol was Uk sourced. When involved with this project I recall the doubts expressed by the then Welsh Office over the possible political fallout of no local stone being used. The quarries' replies were either that the lithologies they were working did not lend themselves to supplying stone of the dimensions required (so why could not other dimensions have been considered by the client's engineers... possibly indicates excessive adherance to one specification when variation might have been possible), or in other cases the replies were that the stone required was not 'run of quarry' and that they were hence not interested (and this was at a time of construction downturn so you'd have thought the quarries would have been keen on business even if a bit inconvenient).

I think I might of mentioned this in an earlier post,but planners are no longer allowed to specify materials of British origin (Eg Welsh slte in Snowdonia national park).Mow they can say of european origin.Or international origin.Obviously this may be different on listed propertys,however Im sure I seen Spanish slate on Chirk Castle,with a small hand full of the original material workd in on one corner of the inner courtyard to please the conservationists.

I would have thought that a competent geologist could specify a material such that only one quarry could fulfil the requirements. No need to mention a country of origin then!

Chris.

I think if someone specified `slate`,the problem is that any rock split (or cut) into thin sheets and producing a similar effect could be used.Without being geologically minded,I would suggest that welsh slate is proffoundly different in its make up than Spanish,Chinese,and Brazilian slate,but similar to the slate of East coast America and New Foundland.All to do with formation and content of the rock (America and Britain drifting apart millions of years ago probably share much geological similaritys along the east and west coasts respectively)

A car made in Britain by a British firm or a car made in Britain by a foreign firm :angel:

I'm not on the road at the moment, but my last trike was made in Wales (By me), and based largely on a Jag XJS 5.3 V12. British enough? ;-)

Next one will be based on a Landrover rear end and subframe.

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I would have thought that a competent geologist could specify a material such that only one quarry could fulfil the requirements. No need to mention a country of origin then!

Chris.

For projects in conservation areas or on listed buildings, the planners often use wording along the lines of 'must be a exact match' (or similar wording) and then reference the original material - so for roofing slate they might be calling for an 'exact match' for mottled or striped slate from a specific bed and of a specific size. However, unless its a Grade 1 Listed Building there is room for negotiation and for common sense, espcially if an 'exact match' is unobtainable. So there are ways of specifying exactly enough to ensure that Welsh slate is used whilst still enabling a range of quarries to fulfill the order.

It's all down to cost

Welsh slate 24"x12"= £4
Welsh slate(Secondhand) 24"x12"=£1.80

China slate 24"x12" new £0.70p
discounts available !
in this country we also use alot of slate from Italy and portugal


Who ever invented decorating wants f***ing !
Whoever invented f***ing wants decorating !

...One last point I drive a British car, Land Rover 90 for me! 😉

Well, sort of British, made by an Indian company, and will soon be built in China.

...One last point I drive a British car, Land Rover 90 for me! 😉

Well, sort of British, made by an Indian company, and will soon be built in China.

Be fair! A new Defender is as you say built by a subsidiary of Tata but when the 90 was built .....well "it where a while ago" as they say in these parts.
🙂

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Some years ago the local council took up all the granite paving in Camborne and replaced it with new dressed granite paving slabs from.....CHINA! :guns:
There was a public outcry. Redruth recently repaved the the main street with granite from....Portugal!!! :curse:
DOHHHHH! Am I missing something??? 😠
I notice that the stuff is beginning to wear smooth outside Greens newsagents already.
I Guess 'Ya Get's What Ya Pays For'.......Foreign muck

sorry to sound blunt about this situation but how ridiculous! I'm pretty sure that importing slates, stone, minerals or even food cheaply from other countries is a bad thing. It's cheaper, but I imagine a lot of jobs could exist in the UK if we harvested/mined/quarried more here.. makes me sad

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Interesting to note that a lot of Welsh Slate was exported to mainland Europe. The Blackett-Beaumont's exported lead to Holland. Weardale fluorspar was exported to USA. South Wales steam coal went to bunker stations all round the world.

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Ok...Try fitting or replacing like for like a Delabole or Welsh slate slab floor, only for the rich I think, I had a quote for a new slate slab for my hearth from Delabole, totaly out of the question for me, got a big imported slab from a local roofing suppliers very cheap, looks just like delabole and does the biz.
If you want local stone only to be used for public works the I suggest that those concerned and their like minded buddies have a whip round and pay for it themselves.

Lozz.

there are a range of problems here but the plain fact is that our useless management structure can't do the job, in large part because they are locked into providing unrealistic returns for our parastical banking structure.

One thing I learnt a long time ago, is that if you walk on a project and see an Brit with a suit that cost more than my car ( not hard, I know ) and an education that cost more than my house, the job is f*cked. Before the Celtic fringe start getting snarky, I'll mention that English, Scottish, Welsh, it makes no difference, in fact of anything the Scots are the worst of the lot.

BMW build Minis in Oxford at a profit, Tata build Jags in Coventry. The Dutch spend nearly 3 billion Euro ( yes, billion ) on their offshore construction fleet in recent years, and they are working world-wide - with a lot of British personnel; Tideway recruited pretty much the whole graduating class of hydrographic surveyors from Plymouth a year or two ago ) and we haven't spent a bent ha'penny.

The Italians have just finished building a pipeline for the Russians with a budget bigger than the Channel Tunnel and made money on it, they have the profit-sharing deals that BP are runnin round in circles after and again, it's because they have the hardware, they have the people and BP have neither, they just want to do a deal...

Nearer home, Seacore was started by two CSM graduates in Gweek harbour a few years ago, they have now sold out to Fugro and have a fleet of vessels working, none of them British.... it can be done.

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There was also an incident, a few years ago, when Cornish County Council were refurbishing old slate quarry workers cottages at Delabole and were going to use imported slate for the roofs as it was cheaper to do that than use Delabole slate from the working quarry that was at the end of the street, literally, where the cottages were. If I remember correctly there was such a public outcry that they ended up using local Delabole slate.
And as regards imported granite has anyone noticed that once the streets have been laid along come an utility company, digs up some of the granite slabs for access and relays a swathe of black tarmac in its place, with no one seeming to bother about it. Maybe its a good job they used cheap imported crap! :curse:

And as regards imported granite has anyone noticed that once the streets have been laid along come an utility company, digs up some of the granite slabs for access and relays a swathe of black tarmac in its place, with no one seeming to bother about it. Maybe its a good job they used cheap imported crap! :curse:

That probably complies with Street Works legislation, unless its a conservation area. Or they are shamed into replacing it as it was, I think this happened with the stone setts in Boscawen Street, Truro some time ago.

Not easy, of course, if the original stone has already gone to the tip.

It really is all down to cost. I work in Construction Industry and specify slate for several projects, and the Welsh slate is always more expensive new or reclaimed, given the chinese slate is so cheap in comparison many occupiers see it as a way of saving a substantial bit of cash when roofing their project. Its a sad state of affairs, in the long run i suspect the chinese is more brittle and more likely to break in out climate.

Many roofers won't touch Chinese slate, because like everything else from china it's absolute crap. I'm dead against importing any slate, but at least Spanish slate is good for a hundred years or so. I'm surprised Chinese slate isn't water soluble