Financial Times: Salt miner sees risk in gas storage plan

Deep inside Britain’s biggest salt mine, remote-controlled mechanised grinders toil to loosen rock that provides about half the grit needed to keep the UK’s roads and pavements clear from snow and ice.

As heavy snowfall at Winsford rock salt mine in Cheshire threatened to make many local roads impassible last Friday, lorries queued to collect its crushed rock salt to replenish stockpiles for road gritters.

But inside the offices of Salt Union, which operates the mine, and on a tour of the works, senior staff were keen to discuss a potential threat. It was not the weather that concerned them, but plans for a nearby gas storage facility that they say is a threat to the future of Britain’s oldest working mine. 

Harold James, managing director of Salt Union, owned by US-based Compass Minerals, is challenging plans by French energy group GDF Suez to build an underground gas storage facility less than a kilometre away from Winsford.  MORE