COUNTY COUNCIL ADMITS MINING IS NOT PART OF THEIR REGENERATION PLANS

On the day that Baseresult Holdings Ltd announced a leaflet drop in the Camborne, Pool, Redruth area to express the companys anger at continual delays to their tin mining plans at South Crofty, Cornwall County Council publicly admitted that a working tin mine does not figure in their own plans for the area.

Adam Paynter, Deputy Leader of Cornwall County Council, was interviewed by BBC Spotlight.  Mr Paynter, who lives in Launceston, said:

The County Council, Kerrier District and the Regeneration Company dont see their (Baseresults) plans as part of the regeneration of the area but its up to them to prove us wrong.

Baseresult has spent more than £5 million on the South Crofty mine since purchasing the site in 2001.  The leaflets and posters that have been distributed to 17,000 homes in Camborne, Pool and Redruth summarise the obstacles that the company has had to face during that period pointing out that the vast amounts of paperwork required are diverting valuable resources away from their avowed intention to re-start tin extraction.

We are 100% committed to mining but Cornwall County Council as the Mineral Planning Authority (MPA), Kerrier District Council and, above all, the Camborne Pool Redruth Regeneration Company (CPR) seem determined to do everything they can to stop us, said Kevin Williams, Managing Director.  We may be a small company but we are backed by private money and, with the price of tin on the increase, we are as confident as ever that we can make South Crofty Mine a commercial success.

In a press statement issued prior to Mr Paynters interview, Cornwall County Council expressed surprise at Baseresults allegations of delaying tactics, claiming that they have given the company numerous extensions of time to submit a mining scheme of operations and conditions which it is required to do under the Environment Act 1995.

Yes, there have been extensions but that is because the MPA, on several occasions, requested further information from us, said Mr Williams.  We want nothing more than to get on with our real job of mining but, three and a half years after starting the ROMPs process, we are still battling with it. We will be submitting the latest set of data within the next few weeks and we look forward to the council making a decision on it at the September meeting of their Planning (Development Control) Committee.

The councils press statement also says that the outline planning application made by Crofty Developments Ltd to redevelop 27 acres of the surface area of the South Crofty site is incompatible with Baseresults mining proposals.

We anticipated that the ROMPs process would be complete before the Crofty Developments proposals were submitted to Kerrier, said Kevin Williams.  Then it would have been simpler to explain how the two developments can work together. The mine is focussed on the Tuckingmill Decline, at the back of the site, and that allows sympathetic development of the rest of the surface area. 

As a mining company, we understand better than anyone how important it is to work with a developer that is sensitive to our operational needs and who will achieve regeneration without compromising the mines operational viability.  We have already seen what can happen when developers or agencies who dont care about the mine start taking the law into their own hands by capping mineshafts regardless of planning rules.  We want both the mine and the surface redevelopment to go hand in hand because we firmly believe that is the best way forward for regeneration.

The County Council states that the public inquiry has been deferred from September until November because Crofty Developments didnt meet the submission deadlines.  What they didnt say was that initial time was lost because Kerrier District Council prevaricated with the Planning Inspectorate when the appeal application was first made.

In the final paragraph of the statement, the council says that the derelict condition of the South Crofty site is not compatible with the aspirations of the County Council, Kerrier District Council and CPR Regeneration for the regeneration of the area and that future development of the site should be compatible with the potential for future mining should this become economic to do so. 

We agree, hence our mining plan and our surface planning application, said Kevin Williams. We would not be re-establishing tin extraction if we did not believe it was economically sound to do so and we have always said that we want to work with the local authority and CPR in order to achieve regeneration.  Sadly, though, our approaches have generally been met by a very obvious lack of enthusiasm to forge a working relationship with us and, in that respect, Mr Paynters admission that the County Council, Kerrier District Council and CPR do not want to see tin mining recommence speaks volumes. 

As a mining company we have invested an enormous amount of money in South Crofty yet when our progress is reported as it was recently in another BBC Spotlight report on the equipment we have bought from Wheal Jane CPR used the media opportunity to threaten a compulsory purchase order.  They dont actually have the power to issue one but, as is so often the case with them, words count for far more than actions.

Despite everything that has gone on, my company remains absolutely committed to tin production.  We want this mine, which has at least 80 years of mineral deposits left in it, to be properly worked again and we are doing all we can to achieve that.

We believe the re-establishment of tin extraction is regeneration and, judging by the feedback we have been getting, that is what local people think too.

28 June 2006