Hemerdon Mine, Dartmoor (Hansard, 25 July 1983)

§ Mr. Anthony Steen (South Hams)

The House has sat all night discussing a range of important subjects. It is only appropriate, therefore, that the last debate should deal with one of the most exciting finds in this country this century. It is a mine which, if exploited, would be among the dozen largest tungsten mines in the world, producing sufficient tungsten for the United Kingdom's entire consumption, with more left for export. It could create 500 to 600 new jobs and benefit our balance of payments by at least £20 million per annum for 20 years. That is the first debate that I have introduced as the Member of Parliament representing the South Hams division. Hon. Members will remember that until the general election I represented Liverpool, Wavertree. My interest was related to the problems of the cities and the people living there. I shall continue that interest as well as developing new interests more fitting to a rural constituency. The problems of urban sprawl and the effect that that has on agricultural land will be a matter for which I shall have especial regard.

I have pleasure in seeing my hon. Friend the distinguished new Minister in his place this morning. He is as vigorous as ever at this early hour. I congratulate him on his appointment and welcome him to the Dispatch Box. I am sorry that the Minister responsible for planning cannot answer the debate. The issues cover planning, environmental preservation, conservation of the landscape and the rights of people affected by mining. I well understand that, as a planning decision is pending, he would find difficulty in saying too much.

The present site of the Hemerdon mine is just outside the national park boundaries on the edge of Dartmoor. It is a most attractive part of the country, although identified in the Devon county council's structure plan as an area for mineral extraction. The only evidence of any mining for tungsten is a cluster of old buildings on top of a hill with a V-shaped valley dropping about 200 to 300 feet below, where there are a number of private houses and cottages, and in all about 40 to 50 of my constituents live there. I have a panoramic photograph of the area prepared by the mining company, which may assist the Minister when he replies.

The valley and the old mining buildings would disappear if planning consent were granted. Some of the buildings would fall into the vast pit that would be created. It will be about 850 m long by 450 m wide, and it will be some 600 ft deep, out of which 105 million tonnes of rock will be extracted over about 20 years. Other buildings would need to be demolished to make room for the crushing plant, which crushes the granite and extracts the tungsten, and other complex machinery.

Up the other side of the V-shaped valley there is an area known as Crown hill down. This would also be affected by the tipping of the waste deposits. Once the mining starts, the area will be dramatically altered. Rumour has it that the pit may be worked even below the 600 ft mark, so rich is the tungsten find.

There is no commitment by the mining corporation that, after the mine has ceased to be worked, the pit will be landscaped. The waste tip will be landscaped, but it will be about 20 years after mining starts before even that will 1018 take place. This could be one of the biggest mining developments in Europe, which must dramatically alter what is currently a quiet, tranquil rural scene, with farms and small houses.

The mine would not be alone. Scars are evident on the west side of Dartmoor. These are the china clay workings, which have been there for some time. About 37 per cent. of English China Clay mining falls within the national park, and 18 per cent. of Watts, Blake and Bearne. The tungsten mine is outside the national park.

While the tungsten find must be one of the most significant in the country, there are issues that must be resolved, I believe, before planning consent is granted by the Department of the Environment. The county council must also bear some responsibility for seeing that what happens is in the best interests of both good mining practice and the environment. The tungsten output from the mine is calculated as being worth between £20 million and £30 million a year. While one must be aware of the commercial potential, it is necessary to balance that with the conservation interests.

The importance of tungsten to this country is well known. It is the hardest and densest substance, with a melting point of 5,410 deg, whereas iron needs only 1,530 deg to melt. Tungsten is widely used in the armaments industry, for electric light bulbs, biro tips and the hardening of steel. Until now we have imported our tungsten from mines mostly in China and in North America, and some from Australia.

In view of the amount of tungsten all over the world, do we need to exploit this mine? Some argue that we do not. The argument is that with prices falling from $170 per tonne in 1977 to only $81 now, it is not necessary to devastate the countryside or at any rate to blight the area. Another argument is that even if the company obtained planning permission it probably could not afford to mine successfully. It might therefore try to sell its rights to a business which would hope to expand the mine if and when the price of tungsten rose. There is some force in that argument. What happens, though, to the mine must be a commercial decision for private enterprise rather than a decison for the Secretary of State for the Environment or Devon county council.

I have criticisms to make of the way in which the Government have pursued the planning application. The plan was submitted by the mining corporation on 16 October 1981 but a public inquiry did not take place until 7 September 1982 and continued until 20 October of that year. I do not understand why the Government are dragging their feet. No decision has been made. The Government are only too quick to criticise local councils about delays in planning inquiries, so why should they sit on this application for two years? Will the Minister lean on his right hon. and hon. Friends to ensure that the application is resolved at an early opportunity?

The mine is not a new discovery. The area was mined as long ago as the 19th century. In 1834 a family trust was established between the Woolcombes and the Strouds. The two families amalgamated their mineral rights in a joint venture. The descendants of those families are active and concerned today and I pay tribute to both families for the help that they have given me in preparing for this debate.

Until the early 1900s, the area was mined for arsenic and tin. It is still possible to see pools in the Tamar river glowing a green shade with arsenic deposits. One can also 1019 see the specially high chimneys built to draw the smoke and thus avoid killing the people who had to stoke coal and rock into the fires in which there was arsenic.

The mine was worked during the first and second world wars for tungsten and tin. It was also worked for one day during the Korean war, but the machinery collapsed from old age and it was assumed that that was the end.

In the late 1960s, however, an international entrepreneur, Mr. Richardson, purchased a 40-year mining lease in the belief that great deposits of tungsten could still he found. He was right. To develop the mine he travelled the world raising funds and in return giving promissory notes to people willing to invest. In the fullness of time, the Hemerdon Mining and Smelting Company Ltd. was registered in Bermuda. The "grubstakers", as they were called, converted their stakes into shares and subsequently Mr. Richardson left the board but not before the company obtained planning permission to carry out extensive tests on the mine.

The problem was that the Hemerdon Mining and Smelting Company of Bermuda was by now virtually penniless. It therefore sold 50 per cent. of its rights to Amax, a large American-based mining company which agreed to put in funds and expertise. Some £7 million has been spent on exploratory work, which proved far more rewarding than could possibly have been imagined. Against that background, planning permission was sought two years ago and the company has talked about investing about £50 million if successful.

Some may say that it is a pity that of the two companies involved one is based in Bermuda and the other in the United States. Billiton, however—a subsidiary of Shell, which is 60 per cent. Dutch and 40 per cent. British-owned—entered into an agreement with the Hemerdon Mining and Smelting Company for an option to buy out its interest to develop the mine if planning permission were granted. There would then be a 50–50 division between Amax and Billaton and there would then of course be a British interest.

So far, I have dealt with the commercial issues. Everything may sound fine and dandy, but there are problems. Digging such a deep mine will have enormous ramifications for the area. Roads will disappear and one or two will have to be re-routed. Houses will be destroyed, homes will disappear and land will no longer be fanned. Visually the area will change from a tranquil valley with a meandering river to a major mining development, perhaps not quite like the American gold rush, but certainly transforming the outskirts of Dartmoor.

There are also fears of dust clouds. As one person living in the valley put it, the same wind that Amax said might cover householders in the valley with dust blows directly down Smallhanger valley, which opens like a funnel onto a large residential area of Plympton and could also scatter dust over the side of the national park.

It is therefore right that Devon county council has been strict in its requirements and has entered into a contract with the development corporations under section 52 of the Act, so that even if the Secretary of State gives planning permission the developer will be obliged to undertake a range of environmental improvements, landscaping and conservation work before being allowed to turn the first sod.

I wonder, however, whether the Devon county council planners have the experience to put all the necessary conditions into the agreement. If they have not already 1020 done so, they might do well to consult planners in other parts of the world with first-hand experience of tungsten extraction, to seek advice on the kind of things that can happen when such a mine is developed and to ensure that all contingences are included in the section 52 agreement. The council may already have done that, but it is worth making that point to the Minister today.

Besides commercial exploitation and job creation, there is great concern that the interests of people living in the valley may have been overlooked in the enthusiasm to exploit the mine, and it is about my constituents that I am primarily concerned today. The plight of people living in the valley in the shadow of the mine must be a matter of concern. They are in a unique and unenviable position. If the Department of the Environment gives planning consent, they will have no rights at all to compel the mining corporation to purchase their properties or their land when they wish to sell.

The sole right of people living in the area will be to wait until the mining corporation wishes to buy their homes because it cannot progress with its mining scheme. If tungsten prices continue to fall, it may be a decade before the developers decide to do that. During that time my constituents' homes will be blighted. My constituents will be able to sell only at a loss and some may have difficulty in selling at all if they wish. They will certainly have difficulty borrowing money on the security of their present homes. Indeed, a major clearing bank has already refused to lend one constituent money on the security of his house to develop his private firm.

If the developer were not a private corporation but a Government Department or a statutory undertaker, there would be no problem about compelling the statutory undertaker to purchase the houses and to pay proper compensation. The difficulty arises because the developer is not a public corporation but a private one. Although public corporations have to follow certain regulations laid down in the planning Acts and pay the right compensation when the householder or property owner wishes to sell, no similar arrangement is provided by the Town and Country Planning Acts in the case of a private developer.

This must be of principal concern, and the Minister will at once appreciate the devastating consequences should planning permission be granted without an agreement first being reached between the private householders and the mining consortium. I should like him to deal with this point when he replies.

Perhaps a way forward would be for the development company to enter into personal contracts with each of the householders and land owners affected — a kind of section 52, not with the county council, but with the individuals. Such an agreement would set out the rights of each of the householders so that they could compel the mining company, when it suited them, to purchase their property at the market rate without taking into account the depreciation in its value because of the potential mining operation.

I am not speaking of many properties — 20 at the most, eight of which will be swamped by the pit, plant and crushing equipment; three or four more at the edge of the pit; and perhaps half a dozen outside. It is not good enough for the mining company to say it wishes to wait a year or two until all the matters are sorted out with the county council to its satisfaction. What about my constituents?

I make only limited criticism of the company, which has behaved well. It is understandably reluctant to 1021 purchase properties until it knows that it has planning consent from the Secretary of State and that all the section 52 arrangements have been sorted out with the county council. We are talking of perhaps £250,000 compensation, whereas £400 million or £500 million could be the value of the tungsten extraction.

There is no reason why my constituents, through no fault of their own, should be financially at a disadvantage. They should not be placed in a worse position in which they can neither borrow nor sell, because a corporation wishes to do some mining.

I have been greatly assisted in understanding the problems by the English China Clay Company, by the residents affected and their legal advisers, and by the descendants of the two families which in 1834 set up the trust. I also thank the general manager of the mining consortium who has been so speedy to respond with information and photographs, as well as the Sparkwell branch of the Conservative party, which so readily arranged for me to meet the various parties involved.

There is much good will, and I hope that the matter can be satisfactorily resolved before the outcome of planning consent is known. The mine offers a new prospect of wealth and job creation in the south-west. I hope that the Minister will give his blessing to the scheme, but ensure that the rights of the individuals are not prejudiced.