Mining and Quarrying

Introduction

Comprising the working of both energy producing materials (e.g. coal, oil and natural gas) and other minerals mainly for construction and the metallurgical and chemical industries, this is today a fairly minor and mature activity in Lancashire. In 2006 the industry employed directly some 300 people in about 30 separate operations. This represented under 0.1% of the county's total employee workforce compared with a share of 0.2% nationally. Most of these jobs are found in Chorley, Lancaster, Ribble Valley and Rossendale. The jobs are mainly male (86%) and full-time occupations (95%). Most firms are small with fewer than 25 employees and are frequently part of larger vertically-integrated construction groups although the localised nature of markets also allows the existence of a number of smaller family-owned operators.

The Minerals and Waste Local Plan provides the policy framework for the sector. The list of minerals and waste sites in Lancashire details those in the Lancashire County Council area (excludes Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool unitary authorities) that are currently used for mining and quarrying activities. It also lists former sites that are nowadays used as landfill sites.

Employment Trends

Mining and quarrying has historically played an important role in economic development but nationally, the sector has experienced severe job losses over the past couple of decades and is much smaller than it used to be. This has been mainly due to the contraction of the deep coal mining industry together with substantial gains in productivity through increased mechanisation and automation. This reduction was only partly offset by increased activity in oil and natural gas extraction. Forty-five years ago deep coal mining was still a large industry in Lancashire employing more than 7,000 people in 22 collieries. Lancashire's last colliery – Hapton Valley Colliery near Burnley – closed in 1982 and no deep coal mining of any economic significance now exists in the county, though coal reserves are still present. The county has experienced small employment growth linked to the energy materials sector especially in gas extraction in the North and South Morecambe Bay Fields.

In the non-energy other minerals extraction sector, with the closure of old workings, ever increasing mechanisation and productivity gains, employment has fallen steadily for decades though the pattern has been fairly stable over more recent years. Employment within the industry today is dominated by skilled driver/plant operating involving the use of complex tractor-type equipment and crushing, washing and grading machinery. Generally, jobs in transport-related operations account for about half the job potential unless there are also secondary industrial activities like concrete product manufacture.

Morecambe Central Processing Complex

Source www.centrica.com

General Characteristics

Lancashire contains extensive mineral resources, some of national importance and others of significance regionally or locally. Some 40 kilometres west of the coast, off Blackpool, the North and South Morecambe gas fields are the source of the largest offshore natural gas reserves outside the North Sea with recoverable reserves of 179bn cubic metres. Discovered in 1974 the fields have been developed by the British Gas subsidiary Hydrocarbon Resources Ltd. and at one point were capable of supplying 15% of Britain's daily peak gas demand. As well as the rigs, the operation has an onshore support base at the port of Heysham which provides administrative and logistical support for the field operation.

Elsewhere across the county, various industrial minerals such as brine and silica sand, together with limited deposits of peat and metalliferous minerals have been worked in the past but are no longer of any economic significance. The remaining extractive operations are now based around non-metallic construction materials – limestone and gritstone for crushed rock aggregates, sand and gravel and materials for the manufacture of bricks and cement serving mainly local markets.

Figure 1 Mining and Quarrying Employee Jobs in Lancashire, 1950-2006

Source Ministry of Labour/ONS - ERII Employment Records

Although small, with local annual net output of only about £5m, the non-energy mining and quarrying sector is a highly capital intensive and high wage one with labour productivity and wealth creation per head being amongst the highest of any industry. Haulage from quarries is usually a complex undertaking and transport costs are high in comparison to basic product costs, greatly limiting geographical markets: about 80% of aggregates are used within 30 miles of a quarry. The sector's health is closely tied with the fortunes of the building and construction industry generally and with public infrastructure spending in particular. Minerals can only be worked where they occur and the industry is prone to environmental pressures because of disturbance to the countryside and the generation of waste arisings as well as posing noise and dust implications but generally has a good record in dealing with these problems and for after-use restoration. Nationally, in the order of 0.8% of total turnover, or an average of £3,000 per employee, is spent on environmental protection matters by the mining and quarrying sector, sums considerably above the average for production industry. The industry has committed to minimising the demand for primary aggregates and is investing heavily in facilities to increase the proportion of recycled and secondary aggregates. Currently about a quarter of aggregates used are recycled from demolition sites or involve secondary use of wastes from mining or industrial processes.

Quarry near Nether Kellet, Lancaster