So, if I understand you correctly, you would rather see the quarries closed,and jobs lost, in order to preserve some buildings + artifacts etc. Verry interesting.
I think, Dylan, that the point is this:
Nobody wants to see the quarry closed for any reason. You have, in the past, suggested that the untopping works may damage something-or-other in the old Bowydd/Votty workings: well, as that's inaccessible, so be it. Hopefully someone there will have made a record of what it was so that it is not lost forever.
The scrapping of movable items is a very different thing: and there seems to be a bit of an odd attitude from Greaves here. Surely if something is going to be sent off for scrap, it could be offered elsewhere for preservation at the same price?
In reality, nobody is going to go into competition with Greaves, either as a working mine or a tourist operation. Relics can be sold without worry that someone else will compete with Greaves.
Furthermore, there are some things no doubt lying around your site that may have been discarded but which can be resurected - for example trucks - and could be sold for considerably in excess of their scrap value. But let them decay to a point when they can not be saved and they'll only be worth scrap value.
Take your rail bending thingy: that was perhaps £5- £10 in scrap value but maybe £100 to the Ffestiniog Railway. What on earth is the logic in weighing it it? If there's anything else like that, then why not list it on here for a week to see if you can get more than scrap value for it?
Surely it's better to make more money now and see things being saved for future generations than to wait for them to decay and be sold for less in the future?
Hello again darkness, my old friend...