Role of Glendinning and Current Operations
Glendinning is an independent family-owned company employing 210 people across five sites in Cornwall (Pigsdon Quarry) and Devon. 12 of these are employed at Pigsdon Quarry.
With an annual turnover of approximately £31 million, the company is a significant private sector business for the Westcountry.
Its annual wage bill of £8 million is higher than the local average and the company’s activities contribute about £7 million a year to the Westcountry’s local economy through its policy of sourcing goods and services locally wherever possible. Glendinning prides itself on being a family business with strong principles.
Pigsdon Quarry Operation
Pigsdon Quarry is the only worked source of the high specification polished stone value (PSV) gritstone within the southwest of England, which is used to construct high skid resistant road surfaces. If this local resource is restricted, increased amounts of high PSV aggregate will have to be imported into Cornwall and Devon from Wales or Ireland to maintain and develop roads which is not sustainable.
The quarry’s customers within Cornwall, Devon and Somerset include:
- Local Authorities for highway maintenance;
- Highway maintenance contractors;
- Asphalt producers;
- Agricultural merchants, farmers and contractors;
- Small building firms; and
- General public.
Due to the interbedded nature of the gritstone deposit with shale, the extraction of gritstone aggregate at Pigsdon Quarry, as well as its processing to meet the specification required by the customer, produces spoil. This spoil primarily includes secondary shale scalpings or shale fills as well as the overburden sub-soils present above the mineral deposit. The secondary shale scalpings are and always will be a bi-product of extraction at the quarry and have limited construction application. The shale spoil and overburden are managed sustainably by retaining it onsite.
Since August 2015 there has been an Aggregate Levy imposed on shale sold for commercial exploitation. This has resulted in more void space being required to store shale onsite due to the high costs associated with the Levy.
The ability to extract the high specification aggregate relies upon void space to receive the shale, the proportion of which is about 40-50% of the mineral deposit.