Whatley Quarry near Frome is enormous, but for the operations manager that is not just what makes it special.

The site is a well-ordered, highly calibrated piece of mammoth-sized engineering, but again, that is also not what makes it special.

It now has over six years of lost time injury (LTI) free working and works less wastefully, and with greater care for the surrounding natural habitat, than ever before, but again, while the team at Whatley are rightly proud of this, what THEY say also makes it special, is how many jobs they support, nurture and promote.

So ahead of an Open Day planned at the site HERE Frome Nub News went along to find out more.

The view from here

We started at the publicly accessible viewing platform – where the sheer size of the operation was explained to us by Operations Manager, Vincent Pitt. Every excavator and dumper truck which rolls out is carefully calibrated to maximise loads and minimise waste, at every level. The quarry itself is shaped like an inverted beehive, with the quarry benches descending to the current workings at the base.

What we saw was a Cat 992 loading shovel with a team of three Cat Triple 777 dumpers and a Hitachi excavator with a team of two dump trucks. All the parts of this Whatley Quarry machine load up and run off to a primary crusher, which takes the limestone in at the rate of 2,200 tonnes an hour. It is all carefully calibrated in cycle times, run as efficiently as possible, so there is no queuing at the hoppers, part of the overarching aim of the Hanson-owned operation to minimise emissions.

If any cog in this machine falls down, there are checks and balances in place. For instance, employees wear monitoring equipment in the case anything should happen which is not part of the plan. For blasting, sentries are posted around the quarry and adjacent footpaths as lookouts. From the top of the site, the aggregate is ordered, sorted and then carried off to the rail sidings - the final stage – when each rail wagon, carrying around 75 tonnes is loaded up (in about three minutes) and sent off to be part of a nationwide supply chain to be used in vital construction projects.

Vincent gave us the numbers: "We are loading 65-70 trailers a week with a lot heading to the South East, but also to Bristol to the port, and to Exeter and Southampton. In all, around four million tonnes a year currently leave from the quarry."

Those blasts, on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are always around the same time, for efficiency and safety. There is even a blast notification by text for those living and working around the quarry, so they can be alerted too.

A working quarry

The company is particularly proud of a breakthrough apprenticeship programme, and currently has three team members on its Leadership, Education and Development (LEAD) higher apprenticeship programme, two mechanical apprentices and one working on the electrical side. It is part of a drive to make the industry more attractive to younger employees, some starting out, and also to encourage a more diverse workforce in the industry. There are over 20 different departments at the quarry itself, so the jobs on offer are much more varied than you can imagine.

In all there are 74 jobs on site, but the quarry supports around 40 more workers as full-time contractors. If given the approval to reopen nearby Westdown quarry, Hanson would support over 200 jobs across the two sites and a further 730 in the regional supply chain for at least the next 20 years. The two quarries are also expected to contribute over £2.2 billion to the national economy by 2042 – what the company calls gross value added – and a further £750.5 million in tax revenue.

"It is not just us digging a hole in the ground," explained Vincent. "We are a responsible organisation, creating lots of local job opportunities. I started in this industry when I was 17 years old and there was a long spell when there weren't any youngsters coming into the business, but that has changed. It is an organisation which we are proud to show off to local schools and colleges and for them to know there are great career opportunities within the local quarrying industry. A lot more goes on here than people realise. I hope that the children we see at our Open Day might one day say, that looks interesting I would like to make that my career."

Constructive discussions with the community

It is a safe environment for people to work in – the site has that impressive LTI free record for over six years - but it is also a varied workplace.

Vincent explained: "There are all kinds of different skills on show here. We want people to come and view what we do and be surprised. We are not just digging minerals out of the ground. Or just thinking we chuck a bit of explosive in the ground and BOOM it blows up and then we dig."

"We have supporting jobs on the engineering side, the electrical operations... not just groundwork. It is a really interesting industry to be part of."

Longer term and longer supply lines

But there is also a longer term vision. Firstly, the quarrying team are proud that there is less than one per cent waste on site, so that means reusing the water and selling as much of the product as possible; to date the only thing they have yet to find a use for is the clay that comes up as part of the excavating which is too heavy to be used on local farmland. But they are aiming to make it zero wastage.

The water on site is pumped into lagoons, or into the local brooks, so they keep the water flowing in Mells and it is also used to spray down the wheels and wheel arches of each and every vehicle that leaves the site, to protect the local roads and to suppress the dust.

For the limestone itself, well you might be surprised where it ends up.

"Limestone is used in products ranging from the toothpaste you use to brush your teeth, to makeup, to the stones in your patio, the aggregate used in asphalt on the roads, but the aggregate that comes from Whatley is used in construction materials. This is a much-needed construction material, we are not just digging a hole in the ground, that is the message we want to get across."

The future

The quarry is currently digging to 30 metres above sea level and will continue the operation until that is exactly sea level. Or to put it another way with each bench of quarrying at 15 metres, they are at level nine, and they can safely carry on until level 11. Then – and there is no date for when this will happen – Whatley Quarry will be restored in line with an agreed plan. It's likely to become a nature reserve, with a big lagoon, a huge natural parkland and possibly no visible sign that all this work and all this effort and variety was never there.