Minerals

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.