1980s open-casting at Tapton

In this blog we look at the 1980s open-casting operation in the Tapton area which happened prior to house building, the Tapton by-pass construction and the arrival of Sainbury’s supermarket. We’ll also take a brief look at the subsequent development of the sites.

For few short months in 1988 residents in Tapton, with properties on parts of Lockoford Lane and Brimington Road at Tapton had to endure open-casting operations as a precursor to house building by Henry Boot Homes Ltd, the county council’s Tapton by-pass construction and the Sainsbury’s supermarket. Until this time the area had been fields for many years.

The site

Fields in a roughly triangular site behind Lockoford Lane and Brimington Road had been zoned for housing in the local plan. Henry Boot Homes Ltd had already obtained outline planning permission for housing here. Adjacent to this site was part of the route of the Tapton by-pass, grouped with what is now the site of Sainsbury’s supermarket and owned by Henry Boot Ltd. HJ Banks Ltd were looking to opencast the sites, but in 1987 the county council (as mineral planning authority turned this element of the planning application down. Banks (and Henry Boot Homes) subsequently appealed to the Secretary of State – and won. Open-casting was to happen – with both sites worked as one.

Open-casting starts

So started a brief open-casting operation, which was designed to last a maximum of 38 weeks, from the spring of 1988. It was estimated that about 32,000 tonnes of coal would be recovered, with the depth of works at a maximum of about 10 metres.

Both the sites were said to have had extensive coal working under them in the past. (Indeed, as the newspaper cutting above shows, they were discovered during the excavations. Some readers may also remember subsidence caused to a few newly built houses towards the north-western end of Lockoford Lane in the 1960s. Members of the liaison committee (see below) might recall that old headings were also discovered during the open-cast operations heading under Lockoford Lane near the then Lockoford Farm).

By February 1988 a liaison committee had been set up. This included representatives from local councillors, residents and local authorities, along with the site operators.

Reading through the notes of these meetings its easy to gain some indication about the work as it progressed.

The February 1988 liaison committee heard from the operators – HJ Banks Ltd – that work was progressing. At that stage it was hoped that work would take only six months. By the next month it was revealed that the land owned by Henry Boot Ltd was in the process of being sold to a third party and that a planning application had been submitted by Henry Boots for retail food development (this ended up being the Sainsbury’s store).

In April the liaison committee heard that all was going well. There was a target date for completion of July/August. The county council’s land had been cleared and was ready to be handed over for construction of the Tapton by-pass. The amount of coal recovered was in-line with expectations.

The meeting at the beginning of June it was reported that the site would be completed by the end of August/beginning of September.

But there were problems disposing of what was termed ‘gob slack’ – basically low-grade coal – from the site. This caused some delays in completion of the site. As a consequence the last liaison meeting (26 July 1988) heard that coaling on site would be completed the following week. Back-filling would then be completed four to five weeks after that, with contractors off site by the mid to end of September.  Despite the gob-slack set-back the planning consent had been met.

Site development

Sainsburys had already asked for top soil on part of the site that they hoped to develop not to be re-spread. The approval of the Sainsbury’s development really heralded the era of out-of-town centre supermarkets in the Chesterfield area. This land had previously been zoned for industrial development. Outline planning permission was gained in January 1988 for the supermarket. The shop opened in August 1989. It was extended in 2011.

Soon after the opencast completion Henry Boot Homes were to move onto their site, with construction commencing on a brand-new estate. The company were selling houses on the first phase of their site by April 1989.

All this development and the absence of a local public house spurred Beryl and Pat Navins to convert and extend the former Lockoford Farm into the Lockoford Inn – this opening in July 1989.

The Tapton by-pass, including its new junction arrangements at Tinker Sick, and the Chesterfield Canal overbridge were under construction in August 1988 and was opened in April 1989. The road cost £3.47 million and was constructed by Retford company AF Budge Ltd.

During this short period of open-casting there were some complaints regarding noise and dirt from site operations and no doubt some inconvenience to local residents, but on the whole the site appears to have operated relatively satisfactorily, particularly given the proximity of housing Brimington Road and Lockoford Lane, some of which backed straight onto the site. These were protected from noise, to some degree, by construction of bunds on the site boundary.  

This was time of large scale opencast operations throughout the country. For example, locally a much larger opencast operation during this period was at the Dixon site.

Sources for this blog

We’ve used the following sources in this blog.

• Notes from meetings of the Lockoford Lane Opencast Liaison Committee – 1988.
• Letter to HJ Banks & Co. Ltd. from Department of the Environment, Bristol, November 1987 – appeals by HJ Banks and Henry Boot Homes Ltd application CHE/387/132 and CHE/187/9
• Chesterfield Advertiser 21 July 1989; Derbyshire Times 19 August and 26 August 1988, 14 April 1989; Chesterfield Gazette 17 August 1988 and 9 August 1989.
• Proposed retail superstore, Lockoford Lane, Chesterfield – application by Henry Boot Developments Ltd. Planning and highways appraisal incorporating a retail impact assessment, February/March 1987.
• Sainbury’s store opening brochure, August 1989.
• Henry Boot Homes Ltd., Lockoford Ridge, Tapton, Chesterfield, sales portfolio and guide prices as 7 April 1989.
• Brimington and Tapton Miscellany 4 (2012).

We are particularly grateful for permission to reproduce photographs taken by the late Adrian Stanley in this blog.

This post was amended on 9 February 2023 to alter the incorrect location of the Henry Boot site cabins in the 25 February 1989 photograph.