I've just heard that Glebe will not be reopening Milldam mine or starting the opencast at Tearsall pasture, it seems that Runcorn's new owners are looking to supply the HF plant with imported fluorspar. Cavendish mill will continue to work for the time being processing material from existing workings but its future is now uncertain.... 😞

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Lost for words. :curse:

This is very sad news indeed, I had hoped Milldam would have developed into a profitable mine for many years to come.

I am still hearing conflicting information from sources in the Peak, some say both Milldam & Watersaw are finished now, some say this was just temporary whilst the Mexichem deal went through and they were hoping that supply to Cavendish will be resuming again shortly from various Derbyshire sites.

These mines are the very last mines still operating in the peak District after several hundred years & to loose them will be a big loss, notwithstanding the possible loss of well paid skilled jobs in the area yet again. 😞

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Glebe are still carrying on working from their existing sources, and the permissions to work Tearsall and Milldam will remain in reserve, so as long as they can stay in business for the immediate future there is still the option of reopening. However, at the present time the plans to work these two sites have been shelved as they didn't feel the capital expenditure on putting these into work would be justified under the current market conditions. I certainly hope they'll still be around in a few years' time....

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I would have to agree.

The man in the grubby yellow hi-vis jacket, sitting in his tipper waiting for the weighbridge, is the direct heir of the lead-miners of the 18th century - not the 'living historian' in a 'poldark' hat down at the museum.

primary wealthy creation is the base on which everything else stands.....

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I would point out here that the Peak Park gave permission for the Tearsall opencast in the face of strong local opposition because they felt the value of keeping Cavendish mill providing local jobs outweighed the damage and disruption of the excavation.....

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I would point out here that the Peak Park gave permission for the Tearsall opencast in the face of strong local opposition because they felt the value of keeping Cavendish mill providing local jobs outweighed the damage and disruption of the excavation.....

I'm glad you pointed that out Adam, while the PDNPA are not my favourite organisation, they do come under extreme pressure from other lesser watchdog groups as indeed do the Councils.

What some of these groups need to realise is that if they are not careful they will extinguish much of the heart and soul of the communities they are so misguidedly trying to protect by their nimby-ism.

If I may, I'll put on my rose tinted glasses for a moment.
Many years ago I lived in and was part of a very close village community in the Staffordshire Moorlands. The then population was around 300, There were 4 pubs, a bank once a week in the front room of a residents house on the Market Place, a few shops, a Post Office, a Chip Shop, a local farming family delivered the milk, looking back now this was a community. I as a 19 year old was a member of the Retained Fire Service, at Christmas I became a temporary Postman. When it snowed (and it did so then) able bodied males collected on the Market Square to be taken on by the Council for snow clearing duties. The Vicar used to frequent each pub in turn just after opening time (never later) for a small sherry. There was a policeman living in the Police House (Panda Cars were just coming in).

Today this scene has now gone. It's gone primarily because the opportunity to work in the surrounding areas has gone. There is no Duron Brake Lining Factory, Ferodo (Fedral Mogul) have down sized, Eldon Quarry has closed. The Cheese Factory at Hartington gone.

I visit the village occasionally. There are now only 2 pubs, the chippy, a couple of shops and I'm not sure whether the PO is open or closed. Undoubtedly there is a village but to me it's not the same. The characters have gone, no Wicked Will to make up rhymes, no Black Jack Mellor to put the fear of God into the local youths.

You know even in those days the elders of the village thought things were changing not always for the better, what would they think now? And as an individual I suppose I was partly instrumental in the demise by wanting to move away for better things.

Peter.

the permission for tearsal came to late the damage has already been done through years of planing permissions being turned down , the reason ineos and mexcem have pulled out because of the harsh rules from the peak park .
that's the bare facts you cannot deny that the peak park are very unpopular with all the farming and quarry industry.
and the whole reason why tearsal is so hard to get up and running is because of those grey crested newts ,maybe we should put the newts in parliament to make the rules if they are so important . 😉

It's easy to blame the peak park for everything and I'm well aware of what many many people involved in either farming or mineral extraction think of them, but the bottom line is this - the park authority are applying national legislation, and regulations, and inside a national park restrictions are even more stringent. That's the law and it's no good griping about the park being awkward, the rules are there, they didn't make them and if they deviate from them in any way they have to justify that. As a result, it's much harder to get permission for any form of mineral extraction within a national park and there will be more conditions attached. It'd be no different if you were to want to win fluorspar on say, Grassington Moor or Greenhow hill. It also doesn't help when you get cases like Backdale where someone tries to use a sparring permission to quarry limestone.

If you want to make it easier the only way round is to get laws changed, so you'd do more by putting a brick through Pat McLaughlin's windows if you're that het up about the restrictions on extraction although he'd probably claim for the replacement on his expenses.... As for the newts, I'd refer you to the recent discussion about welsh gold panning, where you've pretty much got to prove that species x does not live on your site and would not unless you paid it. Again, this is down to national legislation and European diktat, although I agree there are examples of over-zealous interpretation of the rules around environmental stuff.

I think I need to go and lie down, first I've defended EH on here and now the peak park - I'll probably be arguing Stalin wasn't all that bad by Christmas..... :blink:

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So where does this leave Watersaw and the open workings above the limits of Sallet (sorry, cant remember their quarry names)? Are all these Gelbe sites also to be shut down/moth-balled?

J

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thort this site was about mining and quarying think you need to be on a different site (mr a r ) how about friends of the world , green peace , or save the bunnies .
do you work for peak park or are you one of those who is up there arses , you seem to want all mining industry ie quarrying shut down .
moss rake, dirtlow rake, backdale ,and countless other sites have bit the dust recently due to the peak park ,you go tell those workers the peak park are good folks see what they say .

Don't bloody well put words I've never spoken/written in my mouth - where have I ever posted anything opposing modern mining on this site. Can't find anything? Well, maybe that's because I'm usually supportive of continued mineral extraction in the Peak, the one exception being Backdale where I spent a lot of time going through the great mass of documents that went to the public enquiry and came to the same conclusion as the planning inspector, that a spar-working permission does have limits to the amount of host rock that can be removed. From your postings, I assume you supported Bleaklow and MMC's position purely because they were opposing the peak park's position and didn't bother trying to understand any of the legal issues involved, which went all the way to the Court of Appeal.

I've put a statement in this thread saying I hope Glebe survive, but was that not open enough support for you???

I try to point out that the park are tied up in laws and rules they didn't make and you respond with personal abuse, and third-rate personal abuse at that. Well, if that's all you're capable of then do us all a favour and hold your blether - Aditnow's for discussion, not mindless mud-slinging.

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sorry mate i can see where you stand on the topic now , no harm meant young man ay
ps whats hold your blether mean ? ha 😉

sorry mate i can see where you stand on the topic now , no harm meant young man ay
ps whats hold your blether mean ? ha 😉

Stigey I think you are well out of order. For a start I would hazard a guess that nearly all members of this forum would support any continued mining activity regardless where it was in the country.

To pick up on Adam's (AR) balanced informed posts is very misguided on your behalf. To the best of my knowledge AR has long supported real, proper work activities in the Peak Park, like myself he is resident within it and is only too aware what job losses mean to local rural communities. He also is just trying to explain that organisations like the PDNPA have masters too which they have to acknowledge. It is never that black and white. In any event is does no good lambasting the Authority just for the hell of it.

Peter.

And as for "blether" ..... talk long-windedly without making very much sense.

well said toadstone and A.R. no good agravating a snake when its got you cornered, all peak parks have a job to do under rules and regs. we also live by them...i think. there were a lot of quarries and mines working when I lived in Cromford, all employed many men and women, nearly all were owned by one person or a family, now they are owned by multi nationals and all sites have a "berlin wall" round them.when the one owner was operasting one could ask to go and look ...no problem just wear your hat. one could go and work the hillocks around the peaks for spar and caulk and even calcite at times without worry, just pay your dues to the owner. now its become very difficult not always caused by yhe peak authority but by european H&E..why we allowed them to dictate to this country I`ll never know, but what I`m saying is there are influences out there beyong P.D.N.P. I am totally in favour of keeping ALL our mining and quarrying heritage going but sadly they are going to the stone centre in the sky. we could start a movement for saving the derbyshire mining heritage with a begging bowl as a avatar...just one thing I thought that fluorspar had become a national commodity....or maybe not.

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I too like other contributors to this debate regarding fluorspar extraction in Derbyshire, have lived and worked for many years in the Peak District and understand fully the situation regarding employment and loss of jobs if Cavendish Mill closes down. However, I agree with the views of AR, Toadstone, Minerat and others who write on the same lines. I've studied the situation from personal contact with miners, and I have watched with great interest how the opencast sparring industry has gradually changed from the small two or three men companies, or the smaller quarrying firms (i.e. Derbyshire Stone Ltd.) of the 1940's (as described by Minerat) onwards to the fluorspar "bonanza" of the late 1970's early 1980's when bigger machinery was introduced, which in turn reduced the need for manpower and therefore the demise of jobs in the industry. I have also witnessed the wanton destruction of ancient mining evidence, when both underground and surface relics were mined and quarried away regardless of whether or not planning consent had been granted or not with no regard for the history of the mines and their surroundings. Therefore, I have in turn, when I felt it necessary, objected (one doesn't have to belong to a conservation group to object, often individuals can achieve a lot on their own) to planning applications for the extraction of fluorspar and associated gaunge minerals of the vein, but only after, like AR and Toadstone, studying in depth the planning application - one has to get the facts correct before making any objections. Incidently don't forget the original planning consents of the 1952 Minerals Act were open-ended planning consents which could be manipulated and invariably were by mineral contractors to cover almost anything. It wasn't until the late 1970's early 1980's that the Peak Park Planning Board actually started to realise what was happening, that stricter planning restrictions were implemented.

AN has previously debated fluorspar mining at Tearsall and other sites in the Peak District etc., on AN's forum i.e. "Problems at Burtree Pasture" 07/11/2008, "Tearsall quarry permission granted" 01/02/2009, Backdale Quarry 19/03/2009 and "Doe Lea Colliery" 19/03/2009. However, to widen our knowledge conerning fluorspar mining and production in the UK, can I suggest reading the British Geological Survey's open report produced in 2008 (OR/08/27) entitled "The need for indigenous fluorspar production in England". It makes very interesting reading and can be found on the British Geological Survey's website at:-

http://www.bgs.ac.uk 

http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=16015.msg208678;topicseen#new 

From UKCaving...

Spotted that last night and I need to go and see which mine has run in, it's the second one in the last few years up there....

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According to the large scale OS it's Slater's Mine off Bradshaw Lane. Lee W took some photos before the collapse in 2009 I think it was.

It is a big run in, interestingly further east you can also see what appears to be another run in now filled with water. It's just behind the farm a couple of fields away.

🔗Slaters-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-92406[linkphoto]Slaters-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-92406[/linkphoto][/link]

Peter

According to the plan of Milldam mine, the workings are somewhat beyond or north of Slaters engine mine, so it looks like this recent hole is not connected to Milldam .

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Hi guys, just out of interest has anyone got a survey of this mine slaters engine mine,i was up at the mine yesterday its a big hole and it getting bigger by the day, it looks like a big stope has collapsed ,judging by the size of it it will take many thousands of tons of rock to fill it, Adam you my know,cheers. 😮

There's an extremely basic plan in that little pink PDMHS book that everybody seems to own. Don't have it hand right now to give a page number.