'UK will benefit from salt mine extension'

This is the view of the Environment Minister, who last week visited the Irish Salt Mining and Exploration (ISME) site at Kilroot to announce that the approval of the company’s plans to expand the site it is permitted to excavate by 279 hectares.

Edwin Poots’s decision means the mine, which is thought to have reserves of salt within its current boundaries to operate for less than two years, can expect to remain in business for the next three decades.

Following a tour of mine, the Minister said: “Locally, it is important in that there are 54 people employed and the potential for a further 10. Beyond that, it is very important, not just in Northern Ireland, but to the rest of the UK. There are only three salt mines in the UK and given the winter that we have just had, Carrick kept Britain moving.”

ISME managing director Danny Quinlan described the decision as “great news for the local area and for the economy in general”.

Work towards the application began about two years ago with exploration work to determine the extent of salt reserves beneath the countryside on the boundary of the Boroughs of Carrickfergus and Larne.

ISME held initial talks with Planning Service in July 2008, with a formal application lodged in September 2009.

This was then progressed under Article 31 of the Planning Order, which allows proposals of “strategic significance” or with major environmental effects to be dealt with separately from the normal planning process.

The new area to be opened up to mining is described as lying to the north east of Carrickfergus and south west of Ballycarry, 175ha in the Carrickfergus council area and 104ha in Larne.

A total of 500,000 tonnes of rock salt is currently extracted from the mine per year.