Welcome to The Crown Estate
Minerals
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What we do
From sand and gravel to gold and silver, we license mineral extraction and mining.
The total area where we own the rights to extract minerals covers some 115,500 hectares (285,500 acres), but the large majority of this is not actively worked.
Actual operations include 34 lettings, extracting sand, gravel, limestone, granite, brick clay, coal, slate and dimension stone - providing the building blocks of our everyday lives, from the roads we drive on to the offices and homes we inhabit.
Since 1994, we have treated 300 mine entrances or workings and 90 abandoned quarries to make them safe and restore the natural habitats as far as possible.
We encourage and assist our tenants to maintain the highest working practices. To this end a traffic reduction tunnel has been constructed between two quarries in Gloucestershire. A successful underground extraction trial resulted in planning permission being obtained for a full scale operation which is ongoing at a quarry on the Isle of Portland as well as the extension of a facility to produce secondary aggregate from slate waste in Wales.
Get in touch
Rural news
- 01 April 2014 Legal panel appointed for Rural and Coastal portfolio and Windsor estate
- 24 February 2014 Northumberland rural estate purchased
- 05 February 2014 Woodland activity centre granted planning permission
Local focus
- 05 February 2014 Dunster woodland activity centre gets go ahead
- 15 January 2014 Work commences on Lecht road junction project
- 12 December 2013 Early Christmas present for West Somerset Community College
- 26 November 2013 Exe Estuary Trail complete
- 21 November 2013 Delamere regeneration plans open for public consultation