Gwynedd slate mine seeks young workers as demand rockets

Young workers are needed to support growing demand for slate from Wales, a quarry firm has said.

Welsh Slate is expanding its operations at Penrhyn quarry near Bethesda, Gwynedd, and reopening two quarries in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

It will mean 29 new jobs in a part of Wales where slate has been a big employer since the 13th Century, when roofing slate was first quarried there.

"In the long term we are looking for even more," the company said.

Its director, Michael Hallé, said the company needed young people to apply for jobs.

"We work with local colleges and schools, and we've got programmes to encourage apprenticeship schemes," he said.

"We need youth coming into the quarry."

Plans to extract 250,000 tonnes of Penrhyn purple slate were approved in November, extending the life of the quarry to the end of 2035.

Ten of the new jobs will be at Penrhyn, which already employs 115 people.

The remaining 19 jobs will be at the Ffestiniog and Cwt y Bugail quarries, near Blaenau Ffestiniog, which reopen at the end of January after being closed for more than a decade.

"There's a huge demand for slate here in the UK and all over the world," said Mike Ford, operations manager at Penrhyn quarry.

"We currently export 40% of our roofing slate to Australia, we need to expand to keep up with the market demand."

Mark Briggs, who has been splitting roof stones at Penrhyn quarry for 26 years, said he is proud to see Welsh slate on roofs around the world.

"It's good to see our slates on buildings in places like Australia, slate from Wales. From little Bethesda."

But he said "not many young people want to work in the quarry anymore".

"It's too much hard work," he said with a smile.

"Most of our staff are local people," said Mr Ford. "They come from Bethesda, Bangor and Caernarfon.

"We have established a partnership with Ysgol Dyffryn Ogwen and Coleg Menai to try to expand the skill base here in Penrhyn."

Welsh Slate operates an industrial minerals plant in Blaenau Ffestiniog already, with full extraction to restart on 23 January.

The slate will be processed at Penrhyn and Cwt-y-Bugail, another slate quarry with a production history going back to 1840.

Ffestiniog slates are a dark blue-grey, made unique by occasional white veins.

For hundreds of years Welsh quarries have produced heather (purple) or blue-grey slate, considered by many to be the best natural slate in the world.

"A recent building we've completed is St Marys cathedral in Sydney... [and] the parliament house in Trinidad and Tobago," Mr Hallé added.

Slate is extracted from Penrhyn quarry by blasting. That means just 3% of the material is flat and uniform enough to be sold as roofing tiles, Welsh Slate said.

"The big advantage of when we expand the quarry is potentially we can use other methods of extraction like wire sawing," he added.

"That could increase the yield we get from the quarry from 3% to 6%, if not more, so in effect that would double the life of the quarry or enable us to produce more slates."