Ashfield firm wins contract to fill in mine

East Lothian Council demolished Fa’side Lodge five years ago as part of a plan to build new council housing on the land in Tranent, near Edinburgh.

However, the site sits over coal deposits known locally as the Great Seam, and the local authority is now bringing in a private contractor to “consolidate the abandoned mine-workings” on the site ahead of building the new homes.

In a report to the elected members’ library service, it has been revealed Groundsource Drilling and Contracting, of Lowmoor Business Park, Kirkby, has been awarded the contract to carry out the work.

The report says the work, which is expected to take 14 weeks, will ‘involve the consolidation of mine-working in the Great Seam Coal beneath the site by means of drilling and the pressure injection of grout to prepare the sitefor the proposed construction work’.

And it says it will cost at least £139,720 and at most £644,975 – warning the extent of work required is not yet known.

Fa’side Lodge closed as a care home in October 2014 after a new home opened in the town.

The Great Seam refers to coal deposits which ran under Tranent and were said to be at least seven-feet thick and near the surface.

Mining work in the town dates back to the 13th Century and carried on until the deposit was depleted in the early 20th Century.

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