South Crofty tin mine reports its safest year as Cornwall jobs grow

The engine houses standing over Camborne and Redruth are a reminder that this corner of Cornwall has dug for tin before, and for a long time. Documented mining on the South Crofty site goes back to 1592, and when the mine finally closed in March 1998 it was the last working tin mine in the country. Now the company trying to bring it back has set out how it did last year, and a lot has happened. A royal visit, a Chancellor underground, more local people on the payroll and, so far, nobody hurt.

Cornish Metals, the company behind the South Crofty project, has published its second Sustainability Report, covering the year to the end of December 2025. The company describes it as a shift from setting up a reporting framework to showing performance against it, at a point when activity underground and on the surface is rising sharply.

A year with no lost-time injuries

The report leads on safety, and it is a strong number. No lost-time injuries and no fatalities were recorded across employees and contractors during 2025, in a year when hours worked on site rose by more than a fifth to 182,943.

Cornish Metals ranks health and safety as its most important material topic. Planned task observations, where supervisors stop and watch a job to check it is being done safely, reached 331 against a target of 240. Planned site inspections also came in above target. The UK Health and Safety Executive carried out two planned inspections at South Crofty during the year, both of which ended without enforcement action. The site’s own Mines Rescue Team, made up of trained employee volunteers, ran a major joint exercise with Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service and the South Western Ambulance Service to test how the emergency services would work together underground.

Not everything hit target. Emergency response drills and Safety Committee inspections fell short during the period, and the company says it will increase the frequency and scope of both during 2026 as the pace of work grows.

Don Turvey, chief executive of Cornish Metals, said recording no lost-time injuries while hours rose so steeply was down to how the team values safety. “As we advance construction, the risk profile changes and holding that standard will demand more from us,” he said.

A Princess and a Chancellor underground

Two visits in 2025 put South Crofty in front of some high-profile guests. On 6 May, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal came to the site and unveiled a plaque marking the re-opening of the New Cook’s Kitchen shaft. She toured the workshop, was briefed on the geology and the water treatment plant, and travelled underground by shaft cage to see the operations first-hand.

Then, on 29 July, Chancellor Rachel Reeves visited South Crofty on her first trip to Cornwall since taking office. She went underground using the same shaft cage and watched how contaminated mine water is treated. Her visit followed the Government’s £28.6 million investment in the project through the National Wealth Fund, with South Crofty held up as a flagship example of how backing critical industries can create jobs and regenerate a local economy.

The money behind the project has been moving too. A £57.4 million fundraise completed in March 2025, anchored by that £28.6 million from the National Wealth Fund alongside £18.1 million from Vision Blue Resources. According to the report, the tin price carried its momentum into 2026 and reached an all-time high of close to US$60,000 a tonne, which the company says strengthens the case for the financing work it is advancing this year. A final investment decision is targeted for 2026, and first tin in concentrate is forecast for 2028.

Cleaning the Red River

The mine’s most visible environmental job at the moment is water. Around 3.6 million cubic metres of mine water were treated and discharged into the Red River during the year, which the company says was in full compliance with its Environment Agency permit. At full tilt the plant can treat up to 25 million litres a day, roughly the equivalent of filling 10 Olympic-sized swimming pools, before the cleaned water leaves through the Dolcoath Deep Adit at Roscroggan.

The process pulled 99 tonnes of iron, 15 tonnes of manganese and three tonnes of arsenic out of the water, at removal rates the company puts above 97% for each. Monitoring data in the report shows the level of those metals in the Red River dropping sharply since the treatment plant came online in 2023.

The river runs through the same communities the mine sits in, a point Don was keen to make. “South Crofty, located within a World Heritage Site, will be built and operated largely by people who live within a few miles of the shaft, and our water treatment plant discharges into a river that runs through those same communities,” he said.

Sludge produced by the treatment process has dropped by 70% since 2023, and the company is testing whether it can be mixed into paste backfill and put back underground, which would remove the need to truck it off site. Renewable sources accounted for 96% of the energy used, and the company introduced an on-site mining fleet running on hydrotreated vegetable oil. It reported Scope 1 emissions of 73 tonnes of CO2 equivalent and market-based Scope 2 emissions of 17 tonnes, and expects both to rise in 2026 as construction speeds up.

The report does not paint the year as entirely smooth. Two grievances were raised by people outside the company during 2025, both about noise outside normal working hours from the continuous dewatering, and both were resolved. There was also one minor fuel spill, which was contained within the site with no breach of the company’s permit. That squares with what the company’s own research found. A socio-economic survey of more than 450 residents in the Camborne, Pool and Redruth area showed real support for the project, but with conditions attached. “There is significant support for the redevelopment of the project, but that this is conditional on visible local employment, environmental care and transparent communication,” Don said.

More Cornish workers and suppliers

The workforce grew from 80 to 93 over the year, with 24 new people taken on. Of those staff, 84% were recruited from Cornwall and 96% of the workforce lives in the region.

On spending, the company put £24.4 million through 516 suppliers during the year, 212 of them Cornish businesses. Community investment came to £107,000. The Bartles Foundry redevelopment attached to the project was awarded a grant of up to £4.2 million from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Good Growth Programme, funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The company’s School Outreach Programme has grown into one of the bigger parts of its community work. It started in 2022 with seven schools and now reaches 39 across Cornwall, having supported around 1,200 children during 2025 and more than 4,380 since it began. The programme runs in-school workshops, covers the cost of field trips to Geevor Tin Mine and King Edward Mine Museum, and was shortlisted for a “My Best School Trip” Award in 2025. Jon Savage of Weeth Primary School, quoted in the report, said the sessions help children “see the importance of where they live and the world of opportunities available to them.” In early 2026 the company announced a Mining Academy partnership with Cornwall College to help build a supply of skilled workers.

Governance and what comes next

The company adopted the Quoted Companies Alliance Corporate Governance Code when it joined AIM in December 2025, following its move of registration from Canada to England and Wales. Its Sustainability Committee, chaired by Stephen Gatley, met four times during the year and reviewed safety data at each meeting, and no incidents of bribery or corruption were reported. The report was prepared with reference to the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and the GRI 14 Mining Sector Standard, and follows the ‘A’ ESG rating awarded to the company by mining assessment platform Digbee in June 2025.

Cornish Metals is not claiming the job is done. Its stated priorities for 2026 include finishing a three-to-five-year sustainability strategy, refreshing its assessment of what matters most in light of the socio-economic work, mapping controls for its top ESG risks, improving climate governance, filling gaps in contractor data, and building the skills pipeline with Camborne School of Mines, Cornwall College and other local institutions.

South Crofty is permitted to mine until 2071 and is expected to produce around 4,700 tonnes of tin in concentrate a year in its first five years of full production, over an initial 14-year mine life. Tin is classed as a critical mineral by the UK, American and Canadian governments, and roughly two-thirds of the world’s tin currently comes from China, Myanmar and Indonesia. If it reaches production, South Crofty would be the first primary tin producer in Europe or North America, and the company says it could generate more than 300 direct jobs.

“With construction activity increasing, the disciplines we are putting in place now will be tested,” Don said. “There is more to do.”