Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines - Mine Stabilisation Project

Mine Stabilisation Project

In March 1999, the then Department of Environment, Transport and Regions (DETR) announced a Land Stabilisation Programme, based on the Derelict Land Act 1982. This was designed to “deal with abandoned non-coal mine workings which are likely to collapse and threaten life and property”. A Bath and North East Somerset Council outline bid for a two-phase stabilisation project was accepted in August 1999, by English Partnerships who administered the programme for the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. A parliamentary Statutory Instrument (2002 No. 2053) was needed before the work could be undertaken.

Approximately 760 properties were included within the planning application boundary — estimates were that ca. 1660 people lived within this area, which also included a primary school, a nursery and 3 churches.

Foamed concrete was selected as the solution for the large scale infilling of the old mine works: the single largest application of foamed concrete on a project in the UK.

The work was largely complete by November 2009, by which time approximately 600,000 cubic metres of foamed concrete had been used to fill 25 hectares of very shallow limestone mine, making it the largest project of its kind in the world.