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National Park’s polyhalite projects reach 100 schemes milestone

Since the construction of the Woodsmith Project was given the green light by the North York Moors National Park Authority in 2015, over £6million has been invested into North York Moors National Park projects as part of the project’s planning permission.

To date, that investment has helped the Park Authority to complete over 100 projects, ranging from woodland creation, to lighting surveys, monument restoration and a beaver reintroduction scheme, while programmes to increase skills and aspirations, promote tourism and improve local rail services are also being funded via local councils.

Known as a Section 106 agreement, it obliges the owner of the Woodsmith Project to fund schemes designed to enhance the environment, skills and economy of the local area, in order to offset and compensate for the impact of constructing and running of the mine. A total of £170m will be paid to the North York Moors National Park Authority, North Yorkshire County Council and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council throughout the lifetime of the 100 year planning permission.

Dr Briony Fox, Director of Conservation with the Park Authority, explained how Section 106 agreements work.

“A Section 106 agreement is a legal agreement between a developer and a local authority, in this case the National Park, to offset impact caused by development in the local area,” said Briony.

“For example, we have a woodland creation scheme to offset the mine’s carbon emissions, which we’re very proud of - we plan to plant 7,000 hectares or about 10 million trees throughout the park. We’ve already established 100-plus hectares, all native trees species, which is already making a huge difference to the biodiversity of the area.”

The use of traditional skills across a host of the 100-plus projects has also been of huge importance to the Park Authority. Traditional skills have been employed by local tradesmen on projects such as the dry stone walling on the A171 near the Mulgrave Estate, and the maintenance and restoration of a thatched house in Bilsdale.

“It’s hugely important that we keep traditional countryside skills alive in the North York Moors,” says Mike Hawtin, the Park Authority’s Head of Polyhalite Projects. “It’s a huge part of the cultural history of the area and serves as a tool to help us live in harmony with our environment. I’m really hopeful that we can run many more traditional skills projects in future and encourage more local people to take them up to safeguard their future.”

Another of the wide ranging benefits to the agreement and the projects that will be completed as a result is the boost to local employment. “I think one of the real benefits we’ve seen is the number of local people that have already been employed in delivering the project, and the economic benefit of that has already been realised,” he added.

There are almost 100 planning permission conditions relating to environmental issues for our sites. We have a dedicated, local team who work with the relevant authorities to ensure we comply or even go beyond the conditions, and the efforts of that team has impressed Briony.

“The team at Anglo American are really professional and really supportive, we’ve built up a rapport with the Woodsmith team along the way. We have a mutually respectful relationship and regular meetings and the team are really responsive to our queries and that’s really positive,” she added.

And what about the future relationship between the Park Authority and Anglo American Crop Nutrients? Mike is certainly hopeful that the good work between the two parties will continue.

“I think the relationship with Anglo American has been incredibly positive,” added Mike.

“This is a great example of two bodies working together. One, the National Park having a statutory duty to ensure compensation and mitigation having given the go ahead for the project, and the other a large organisation like Anglo American, who really are serious about delivering these mitigation projects and do have a genuine interest in the ecological and other benefits these projects are delivering.

“I was quite unsure as to how the projects would be received by the landowners, tenants or farmers, in terms of delivering these projects with money from a project that was initially controversial. But as time goes on we’ve seen that feeling lessening as people have witnessed more of the benefits that this project can deliver.

“I’m certainly hopeful that positive relationship we have continues into the future.”

You can read about some of the projects we’ve helped the North York Moors National Park complete with our Section 106 funding here: https://uk.angloamerican.com/sustainable-mining