SEVERAL residents in Luckett have rallied together to purchase land containing an old mine to save it for the community.

The New Consols Mine site was owned by the Duchy of Cornwall but the Duchy put the site up for sale last year as part of a plan to sell off unproductive land.

In response to the sale, a number of residents decided to approach the Duchy to see if it would consider selling the mine to the community. The residents put forward their reasons to the Duchy for wanting to purchase the land, including loss of amenity for dog walking and children’s play area if it was built on, house devaluation, threat to historical area of interest and health concerns if settled arsenic spoil was disturbed by development as well as other worries. The Duchy accepted the concerns and agreed to postpone the public auction.

Since then, a number of residents came together to form a community interest company called Luckett Heritage to buy the New Consols Mine from the Duchy which was completed last month.

David Bricknell, a director of Luckett Heritage Community Interest Company, said: ‘There was a high level of individual participation by individual residents in the crowd-funding campaign to purchase the New Consols historic mine site from the Duchy.’

‘Luckett Heritage CIC was formed as a vehicle to manage the purchase and ongoing development of the site.

‘A CIC legally sits somewhere between a charity and a commercial company and locks the assets of the company — in our case the land. In other words the land cannot be sold on.

‘It was a straight forward process to set up the company and as there was a strong local interest in protecting the site, there was keen participation by the local community. Five members of the company have been appointed as directors and the purpose for acquiring the land is to provide an unspoilt amenity for the village.

‘We have had discussions with both Historic England and Natural England to explore ways of how to manage the natural habitat and preserve the industrial archaeology of the World Heritage Site.’

The former mine site comprises around 20 acres of woodland and open space and still retains the historical mining chimney stack.

The site was classed as a scheduled ancient monument in 2014.