ROD STAFFORD of the local area mining family/land holders

I had arranged to see Mr Stafford with maps of the entire burrum district relating to the coal interests his family had with the ownership of Howard Collieries who did a lot of the mining in the area.

It was described to me how the seams ran through the area and apparently went in a circular type radius probably as the nucleus being the dump area and going around in a circle through the current railway station area and towards the golf course and then in a circular motion along Burrum River Rd back towards Torbanlea and then back to Howard again.

These mines and shafts are old ones and have long since been filled in with only the occasional subsidence.

They are not and should not be a problem in most cases, however it is great to know about these workings in case they do become an issue.

The plans and maps are fragmented in some cases and will require some serious work to make them usable or desipherable .

I have organized a surveyor to volunteer his services to copy the plans and get them back to us in some form that perhaps we can structure some usable format from them.

These plans will then be available for access to the public, consultants and authorities to access for a small fee when searches are done etc when buying a property etc or planning developments in the area.

The chamber extends its thanks to the Stafford family for thier co-operation in supplying the necessary data from which we shall endeavour to amass the mapping guidelines to the mining history to this area.

At some stage we shall supplement this info with that from the mining department to assemble what we believe will be the most comprehensive old mines maps in the district.

WILL KEEP YOU POSTED WITH DEVELOPMENTS

Published by Henry Sapiecha 2nd June 2009