Parish Council Meeting 28th June 2000

The meeting was opened at 7:30pm by Clr. Hirst, to a large audience - in fact more than attended last month’s Annual Meeting. There were apologies received from Clrs. Askew and Fawcett and from DDDC Clr. Mrs Crowther, the previous minutes were accepted, with one matter arising. This was that a reference to noise in the Business Park in last month’s meeting had been misinterpreted in the telling; in fact the noises were believed to be caused by intruders, not tenants of the Park.

A representative from Glebe Mines (the successors to Laporte) then gave a presentation on the company’s plans for mineral extraction in Deep Rake. This is reported in a separate article. It being only a presentation of the company’s intentions, there were no formal plans to consider, and no resolutions to be made.

Approvals for several planing applications were noted and an application by Great Longstone School for a conservatory considered. This application was fully supported by the Council. The Peak Park Planning Board have made changes to the Local Plan and these were submitted to the PC, but as these could not be overridden by the PC, they were not considered in any detail.

The financial situation is £1000 in the current account, £9500.89 in the deposit account. Several payments were approved.

There were no developments in the Village Hall, and it was noted that the repair and alterations to the playground equipment had still not commenced. The PC are now concerned that they will not be able to submit for the anticipated grant for the resurfacing (which cannot take place until the slide has been altered) before the funds run out. This will put the work back another year.

The Doctor On Call system was then discussed. A call to any of the local surgeries out of hours is now diverted to a call centre, where it may be queued, and answered by a nurse, who evaluates the need for a doctor. However, the main problem is the distance the doctor may have to travel to get to an emergency. Very few doctors cover the entire county, and a doctor may have to travel from as far afield as Ripley or Derby. Add to that the difficulty of finding the location in unknown territory, and it may take hours for a doctor to reach a patient. The PC were very concerned about the potential risks to health posed by this system. Clr. Mrs. Crowther said that Ashord PC was equally concerned and they were holding a special Parish Meeting, with a member of Derbyshire Ambulance Service attending, to discuss the issues. Longstone PC resolved to send a representative to that meeting, and report back to the next Longstone PC meeting. If it were felt that any value could be gained from a similar exercise in Longstone, then this would be done.

On the millennium, it was reported that the sports day will be organised by Paul Mizon, Roy Finney and Les Williams. The PC resolved to fund the prizes and food to a maximum of £300. It was – as yet – undecided as to whether an event for older villagers would be held or not. Millennium Mugs will be on sale at the sports event. The children’s Millennium Mugs will be presented to the children at Longstone school next week.

The Clerk reported that Severn Trent’s estimate for installing a water supply to the allotments was in the region of £500. The PC felt that this was too expensive to be funded by the parish, but if the allotment holders wished to fund it themselves, the PC would have no objections. Discussions on the future of the adjacent land were felt best adjourned until a full complement of councillors was present, and it was further suggested that a separate meeting be held to discuss this issue. So if you have an interest in attending, watch the village notice boards for details.

Under the regular topic of maintenance, it was noted that the grass and brambles needed cutting back on Bells Stile. The Clerk reported that the unauthorised gate onto the Recreation Ground was still present, and the Council resolved to write another letter requesting that it be stopped up. It was also resolved to write to the (presumed) owner of a pile of debris on the verge on Glebe Avenue and ask them to remove it.

Glass recycling and Longstone Business Park attracted no comments. A brief discussion on traffic calming decided that other than the matter of road markings (raised at last month’s Annual Meeting), there was nothing that the Highways Department would approve, so there was no point in pursuing any other schemes.

The next topic was financing Under The Edge. Readers will be pleased to hear that the Council support the magazine and believe it an asset to the village. It was therefore resolved to make another grant to the magazine this year, increasing this slightly to £250.

A transfer of licence for Croft Country House Hotel was approved with no objections.

Several items of correspondence have been received; the PCC have asked for permission to erect a crib at Christmas, the PC resolved to give permission. A letter from Longstone School Governors has been received in connection with the planning application. The Council has received notification of the intention to close Buxton Police Control Room and transfer operations to Ripley, Chesterfield or Derby. The Council resolved to write a strong letter opposing this plan. A letter from a member of the public regarding the new village green was in favour of the green being open. Finally, documents have been retrieved that show that the wall on the recreation ground’s north side is not the responsibility of the Council, and so they would ask the property owner to repair the fallen section.

Next month’s meeting is on 26^th July, at 7:30 in the Village Hall. There may be an additional, special meeting to discuss the plans for the new village green.

Presentation by Glebe Mines

Mr John Elkins from Glebe Mines (the successor to Laporte) gave a presentation on the company’s plans to extract minerals from Longstone Edge. To open, the company apologised for neglecting the relationship with the village, Longstone parish being where most of the company’s mining activity has been in the past.

The presentation proper started with a brief overview of the new company, its origins and intentions, and some background information on Laporte: The predecessor to Laporte, Glebe Mines (the original Glebe Mines) had been operating in the area for many years when Laporte bought them out. Laportes continued with surface and underground mining and refining at Cavendish Mill. By the 1990s the entire production of Cavendish Mill went to a single customer and when that customer decided to buy elsewhere, it dealt all the operations in the area a devastating blow. Laportes could see no future for mining or refining and decided to close down and sell up. This is where the current owners enter the picture; they are Land Regeneration Management, and as the name suggests come from a background of "clean-up" operations, their core business being to reclaim unused industrial sites. The Laporte business was originally bought with the intention of being a similar operation, but on further investigation, LRM felt that the business could be made viable if scaled down, as there was still strong demand for the products. LRM set up a new company to continue the smaller-scale operation, and for historical reasons decided to name it Glebe Mines.

A joint application was made with RMC to work a large area of Longstone Edge, including the Backdale area. This fell through, and RMC have - apparently - no further interest in the area. Glebe Mines have now put together their own proposal, which concentrates on the Edge only, approximately from the top of Wigley Lane (top of Rowland) to ????? Farm, and area of about 25 hectares. Test drillings have indicated there are substantial amounts of minerals remaining in Deep Rake in this stretch, even though much has been mined already, both from the surface and from below. It is estimated there are one million tonnes of minerals available. The only economical way to extract this is by open casting, but due to the great depth, the hole would need to be very wide. This means that four million tonnes of stone will have to be removed to extract the one million tonnes of mineral. The surface workings will be 90 metres at their deepest, but typically 60 metres.

Most operations will take place on the north side of road along the top of the Edge, and so be out of sight of the village. Blasting will be required approximately twice a month, but the Glebe believe that the village will not suffer any side-effects from this. A small operation will continue under The Beeches, but this will be completed within three years. The main workings should be completed within 10 years.

The plan is that the hole will be refilled with a mixture of stone and tailings produced by the refining process. There is a huge backlog of tailings to dispose of, so there will be a surplus of approximately two million tonnes of material from the operation. This will be in the form of limestone, and the intention is to market this. Effectively, five million tonnes will be removed from the rake; two million will remain on-site to backfill, and three million tonnes of tailings from Cavendish Mill will be added to the backfill. The three million tonnes that leaves the Edge will all go to Cavendish Mill, one million tonnes of this being ore, two million limestone. It is the company’s intention to route all traffic to and from the open cast on a private road, so none will be on public roads.

Glebe have consulted with the PDNPA, and they have no objections in principle. Providing there is a demonstrated need for the product and the extraction is done in an environmentally friendly way, the NPA will approve mineral extraction operations. Derbyshire fluorspar is still highly sought after and so is a valuable product. In the ore from the Edge there is also barytes in viable quantities, and still a small amount of lead (1% or less).

The restoration will leave small surface features, but current thinking is that this is more natural than completely levelling the site. Soil will be replaced, but the revegetation of the area will be left to nature.

During the question and answer section, one of the questions posed to Mr Elkins was, surely, one that must have occurred to many people "Why are you digging all this up again? Surely there’s nothing left there". The answer to this is two-fold: 1/ Mining and extraction techniques have improved over the years. 40 years ago, the only way to open cast was to use drag lines and bulldozers. Today hydraulic machinery is more a flexible tool and can extract mineral from places drag lines couldn’t. The rakes on Longstone Edge are not vertical, they curve as they descend, so drag lines had difficulty in getting to the lower depths. 2/ Refining techniques have improved. When Glebe worked the area 40 years ago, ore would typically have to have 40% mineral content to be viable. If the content dropped below this, the ore was left in the ground and operations moved on to a richer area. Today ore with 25-30% mineral content can be profitably processed, so ore originally discarded is now of value.

Other notable questions raised were: Queries about the health hazards of the tailings; Mr Elkins explained that it was unlikely these were hazardous, as they contained less lead and minerals than when originally extracted from the ground. The company strives to extract as much of the mineral content as possible. Some members of the audience alleged that the tipping of rubbish has already taken place on the Edge, and the new, huge hole would offer the opportunity for more such tipping, which could be very profitable for Glebe. Mr Elkins said there had been fly tipping in the past, although the company did what it could to prevent this, the Edge is an accessible area. Any such tipping was always followed up by the Environmental Health authorities, but usually to little avail. Vehicles that had been seen with the word ‘waste’ on the side of them were carrying soil onto the Edge for restoration purposes. Glebe had no intention to allow rubbish tipping into the new mine and equally, the Environmental Health authorities would be against this.