Re the forthcoming closure of Laporte Minerals' fluorspar mine in
Derbyshire.
In principle, everyone must hope that, in the short term, the mine and its
processing plant, the Cavendish Mill, are put on a care-and-maintenance
basis, in the hope that the day may come when they can be reopened and
provide employment once more. Thereafter, whether or not anything is
preserved, or sold to the scrap metal merchant, boils down, as ever, to a
question of "Who pays?".
Within the context of Laporte Industries' whole range of business concerns,
my guess is that the Derbyshire mines are small fry.
For reference purposes, the following may be useful:
(1) Mining Journal's report of the forthcoming closure was in the July 30,
1999 issue, page 79.
(2) The mines were described in some detail in a four-and-a-half page
article entitled "Fluorspar Mining in Derbyshire", by the then General
Manager of Laporte Minerals, Dr. John Bramley, in the November 1990 issue
of Mining Magazine, pp328 to 333. The article describes the underground
mining operations at the Milldam mine, the ore processing in Cavendish
Mill, and matters such as tailings disposal.
(3) The present General Manager of Laporte Minerals, now presumably under
threat of redundancy, is Peter L. Huxtable, a Member of Council of the
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy. I do not have an e-mail address, but
the postal address and telephone number are:
Laporte Industries Ltd, Cavendish Mill, Stoney Middleton, Sheffield,
Yorkshire, S30 1QH.
Telephone: 01433 630966
Tony Brewis
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