/Z obert Barnard's yard is on the site of the South
Page 54
Page 56
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Crofty tin mine, near Redruth, Cornwall. His vehicles, and those of several local subcontractors, begin leaving the yard at 6am each day for a 50-minute round trip to the processing plant at Wheal Jane, built on the site of the last tin mine to close.
"When things build up, there could be 1,500 or even 2,000 tonnes to move," says Barnard. "I have had 14 or 15 vehicles in a day in recent weeks: four or five of my own vehicles on the job, and others from local hauliers like Sid Knowles, who I've known a long time."
At the end of August, the local community—many of the mining families are shareholders in the mining company—not to mention Barnard himself, was devastated by confirmation that the mine was to close following a long struggle for survival.
The imminent demise of the last tin mine in Cornwall, and indeed the UK, was hastened by the current economic success of the country as a whole.
Bernard Ballard, project manager at South Crofty, explains: "Because of the dollar price of tin and the current exchange rate, we are receiving less dollars to the pound. We are getting something like £.3,400 per tonne of tin on the world market, but the mine is very po. • deep and it costs us £3,800 a tonne to produce it. So you can see, we are making a loss." Surface-mined ore in other countries, and the increasing use of aluminium in the canning industry, for example, has helped reduce the price for tin still further.
Four years ago things looked a little brighter for Barnard when he won the contract to haul the mined ore from South Croft.
His business has since grown to seven vehicles, and while his long-distance work includes glass for recycling to Yorkshire and china clay to the potteries in Staffordshire, 60% of his £4(X),000-plus turnover comes from transporting the tin ore.
Faced with the prospect of lasing this work Barnard is surprisingly philosophical: "Everyone in the area will suffer, including the miners themselves, of course. I'm at the end of my working days, but [feel the Government should put some money into saving the mine for the younger people. They have mortgages and children and all they will face is the rest of their lives on the dole."
A number of initiatives are being investigated, any one of which could result in a rescue package for the mine. However, whether it is direct government funding, a development agency, or some kind of commercial venture that makes the mine more commercially competitive, any reversal of the decision to close it is needed soon because the closure is already in motion. By the end of September miners will be reaching the point where extra investment is needed to open new areas to mine. In other words, there will be nothing left to bring up to the surface.
"At the moment we're working out the areas already prepared," says Ballard. 'After that we run out of places to work. We're falling behind what we need to be doing in order to keep on an economic track."
Failure to open up new areas to mine is already affecting the business of South West Aggregates, whose sole proprietor for the last four years, Roger Rule, has been involved with the South Crofty mine for about nine years.
His materials-processing business receives the non-ore rock that is mined as a by-product of the tin extraction process. He screens it and sells the refined rock as various grades of hard core. Much of it is used in local building projects for delivery by local operators.
"All my rock comes from the development of new levels, and that's already stopped," says Rule. "At the moment there are no more than three or four vehicles a day, but I have been shifting amounts as big as 200 or 300 tonnes a day until quite recently. Now my stocks are running down. I haven't had any waste from the mine for about a fortnight and I'm not likely to get any more."
Local hauliers such as Michael Mudge and GA Carlyon source from the hardcore that Rule produces.
"We do buy from South West Aggregates but now we will have to go elsewhere," says Michael Mudge's Keith Brown. The company runs 12 tippers delivering locally quarried stone to building sites, as well as muckaway work and truck hire.
Brown says South Crofty has been producing only a very small amount of the stone his company uses, so the effect of the closure will not be so great.
Graham Carlyon has a different view, however. His operation is approaching its centenary and is among the oldest haulage companies in Cornwall. His grandfather hauled from South Crofty using traction engines, and Carlyon himself is the fourth generation of the family to be involved in transporting the associated mining material.
These days GA Carlyon operates half a dozen tippers and plant machinery. In addition to occasional subcontracting work from Barnard, much of its work involves site preparation for local authority building works. It buys the stone from SWA so that it can supply its own hardcore.
"The stone is a good product, especially for road works," says Carlyon. "The closure will pose some problems for us because it was our main local source when working in the Camborne area. It means we will have to run further to get the stone, which is adding fuel and mileage and it will make the product more expensive for us to supply."
Subcontractor
Sid Knowles is Barnard's main regular subcontractor. The company runs 19 vehicles and its fleet is heavily committed to supermarket site development work, to the tune of about 12 vehicles a day. It also handles a large amount of scheduled longdistance work carrying granite chips and dust to paving manufacturers in the Midlands.
Knowles says that although only 10% of the company's work is derived from subcontracting from Robert Barnard, it will still be sadly missed.
"We've just done a supermarket at Penryn and started another one at Falmouth, so we don't have many vehicles to spare right now," he explains. "But when that work stops we would have been very grateful to go and help out Bob Barnard."
As for Barnard himself, the short-term future looks deceptively promising. He understands that because the prepared mine workings will still be sent for processing, South Crofty will be producing up to 1,000 tonnes a day for the next month. But after that the reality of the situation will come into focus and Barnard has no illusions about the decisions he will soon have to make.
"I would have to get rid of maybe three drivers and continue with the long-distance traffic," he says. "There isn't anything left in the area to do. I don't know what the rates in the quarry business are, but there isn't enough of that work about and the only way I could get into it is to cut the rate. That's a bloody waste of time, isn't it? I'd rather get rid of the lorries!'