This is stonemason Beatrice Searle’s story of her 1,300-mile journey to Trondheim Cathedral pulling a 40kg stone she calls the Orkney Boat on a converted sacktruck she names Marianne.

Her journey has been inspired by the stories she is told of Magnus Erlendsson, the Patron Saint of Orkney, by her stonemasonry college tutor, and a mason’s banker mark found on stones in both Lincoln Cathedral, where Beatrice is an apprentice, and Nidaros Domkirke (Trondheim Cathedral), which starts a conversation between the masons at each.

She visits Orkney, chooses a stone, carves footprints on it and sets off for Trondheim in Norway dragging it behind her, inviting people she meets along the way on the ancient Gudbrandsdalen pilgrim path to stand in the footprints and experience what they will.

It may sound a bit unlikely, but it is a story everyone can relate to because it unfolds as a metaphor for life, in which the hardest journeys can be the most rewarding.

If you have read and enjoyed Alex Woodcock’s King of Dust, published in 2019, and Andrew Ziminski’s The Stonemason, published in 2020, you will probably enjoy Beatrice Searl’s Stone Will Answer.

There is a review of the book in the Natural Stone Specialist magazine. If you would like to, you can download a PDF of it below. To subscribe to the magazine, click here.

After being closed for more than a decade, Welsh Slate has re-opened Ffestiniog Quarry and it is back in full production, producing the world renowned blue-grey roofing slate.

Welsh Slate says the re-opening is due to a huge demand for Welsh slate in the UK and worldwide.

The slate from Ffestiniog has a smooth riven texture. The majority of the production is focused on the core sizes (500 x 300mm, 400 x 250mm and 300 x 200mm) in three thickness grades: Capital (5.5mm), County (7mm), and Celtic (9mm). The quality of the stone will allow production of roofing slates in excess of a metre long for those who require it.

Ffestiniog Quarry is in the heart of Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales. It was opened for slate production in 1818. The slate from it was formed by the Ordovician slate beds laid down more than 470million years ago.

Ffestiniog Quarry characteristically produces a thin, uniform slate with less texture than the slate from Cwt-y-Bugail, another nearby Welsh Slate quarry. It does not have the immense capacity of Welsh Slate's quarry at Penrhyn in Bethesda but is still able to produce sufficient volumes of roofing slate to meet demand.

Re-opening the quarry at Blaenau Ffestiniog will lead to the recruitment of 20 more staff. They will help produce 25,000 roofing slates a week initially and the number is expected to rise quickly to 30,000.

Seven of the new recruits will be based at Blaenau Ffestiniog, extracting and transporting large blocks of raw slate to Cwt-y-Bugail at Llan Ffestiniog, three miles away. Six more staff at Llan Ffestiniog will saw and split the slate for the rivings to be dressed at the company's main Penrhyn Quarry.

Roofing slates from Ffestiniog Quarry were used on such prestigious projects as Kings Cross and St Pancras railway stations, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Westerloo Town Hall in Belgium.

The slate was particularly popular in southern England, south Wales and The Netherlands because the light weight of the tiles meant they were particularly cost effective to transport, mostly by ship, as a shipping duty had been introduced in the UK in 1795.

Ffestiniog roofing slates are blue-grey in colour, generally lighter in shade than Cwt-y-Bugail's dark blue-grey slates and with a finer grained texture, which is what makes it possible to spilt them slightly thinner and in larger formats. Although their colour is different to Penrhyn Heather Blues, the texture is similar.

The re-opening of its Blaenau Ffestiniog quarry will also enable Welsh Slate to re-establish its offering of Ffestiniog architectural products for external and internal applications such as cladding, paving, flooring, window cills, copings and fire hearths. 

Returning the quarry to roofing and architectural slate production has required a significant investment by Welsh Slate, part of the Breedon Group that lays claim to being the largest independent construction materials group in the UK.

Sophisticated geotechnical mapping of the site identified underground chambers from the days when the slate was mined. There was minimal overburden, which meant the existing roof of the mine could be removed to expose the pillars of slate left by mining for extraction, a process that had been started by the previous owners in 1973 but was abandoned. The slate deposits identified by surveyors are expected to last for the foreseeable future.

Commercial director Michael Hallé says: "It's a far cry from its peak in the 1870s when the quarry at Blaenau Ffestiniog employed more than 2,500 people and produced around 10million slates a year, but the re-opening of our Ffestiniog quarry will improve the availability of Welsh Slate overall, with total output from the three quarries amounting to more than 100,000 slates per week.

"We are delighted we will now be able to meet the exceptional demand from both domestic and export markets for this high-quality slate. There has been a strong interest from the merchants and roofing contractors in the UK and abroad and we look forward to seeing Ffestiniog gracing roofs again.

"The investment in re-opening this quarry, to allow safe extraction of the material, was considerable, but many skilled roofing contractors, particularly in The Netherlands, where our slate is of far superior quality to local slate, prefer the Ffestiniog slate."

Welsh Slate also applied successfully last summer for planning permission to increase the life of Penrhyn Quarry, the largest of the Welsh Slate quarries that was, at one time, the biggest slate quarry in the World.

If you need help in understanding the precise benefits of the slates from the different quarries, or which grade of Ffestiniog Welsh Slate roofing to choose for your roofing project, Welsh Slate will be happy to hear from you to explain more. Call 01248 600656 or email enquiries@welshslate.com

www.welshslate.com

Francisco Martinez, who owns Cosentino, the Spanish manufacturer of Silestone and Dekton, has agreed to pay €1.1million compensation to five people (although one of them has died) who said they were not provided with adequate warning of the risk of being exposed to silica dust as a result of cutting and polishing Silestone countertops.

The compensation was part of a plea deal in a court in Spain that saw a prison sentence of two years nine months sought by the prosecutors reduced to six months (suspended) for five counts of serious injury due to gross negligence, reports Reuters.

Cosentino immediately issued a statement saying that liability had been admitted for providing insufficient technical information affecting five workers at a specific workshop only, and that the court’s ruling "cannot be generalized to any past or future proceedings". (You can read the full Cosentino statement by clicking here or on the link at the end of this report.)

Reuters says 71-year-old Francisco Martinez is due to appear in court again in July for a separate trial in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao, where prosecutors are asking for two and a half years' imprisonment on six counts of reckless injury.

Cosentino employs more than 5,000 people worldwide and posted record sales of €1.4billion for 2021. It reportedly plans an initial public offering (IPO) of shares that could be worth as much as €3billion.

Cosentino’s statement says "it is the fabrication shops’ responsibility to ensure the safety of their workers by properly implementing and enforcing safety measures".

It also says: "News articles that refer to other admissions made by Cosentino are completely false, including that Cosentino concealed information about the health & safety measures required to fabricate Silestone or that the handling of Silestone has caused the majority of cases of silicosis that have affected 1,856 workers."

It points out that this case took place in a "context where the relevant facts of the case are from more than 15 years ago when the applicable legislation was imprecise, and the science of occupational risk prevention had not yet evolved to today's standards".

According to Reuters, in the ruling on 7 February the judge said Francisco Martinez had failed to provide adequate warning of the danger from the silica content of Silestone despite being aware of the safety and health risks that the processing of the material entailed.

Historic building conservation contractor DBR (London) Ltd has developed a three-year partnership with the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) to support the QEST scholarship programme.

Coinciding with this year's National Apprentice Week (6-12 February), the QEST/DBR scholarship enables those involved to further their craft skills in the preservation of the UK’s built heritage.

The scholarship programme is open to anyone looking to enhance their craft skills in built heritage, from stonemasonry and plasterwork to leadwork and joinery.

The successful candidates will receive a substantial bursary funded by DBR, which will go towards specialist training in their chosen field, from traditional college courses to vocational one-on-one training with a master craftsperson or a bespoke programme of short courses.

The scholarship is open to those aged 18 or older who can demonstrate a high level of skill and a strong body of work and experience in their chosen field.

Applications for the QEST/DBR Scholarship will open in July for an award in November 2023. Entries will be judged by a panel of QEST experts.

Adrian Attwood, DBR Executive Director, says: "This is an important development in our commitment to provide opportunities for the next generation of skilled craftspeople. As DBR is a Royal Warrant-holding company, QEST, as a charity of the Royal Warrant Holders Association, was our ideal partner, upholding the values of quality and excellence.

"We are extremely proud of our highly skilled craftspeople and this annual QEST/DBR scholarship will ensure our legacy to continue to support the future development of crafts skills in the UK."

Deborah Pocock, CEO of QEST, says: "DBR’s commitment to developing and sustaining craft skills makes them an ideal partner for QEST. We must all be concerned about passing on skills to the next generation and ensuring that we have appropriately trained individuals to conserve our built environment. We are grateful to DBR for enabling this annual scholarship."

DBR’s scholarship partnership with QEST represents the first step in a wider campaign, The Year of the Master Craftsperson (YMC), which seeks to promote the social and cultural importance of heritage conservation skills.

YMC’s wider aim is to celebrate current industry practitioners and the amazing work they do, as well as encouraging more young people to consider a career in this highly creative and rewarding sector.

Set to launch in the Spring, DBR's YMC campaign will showcase some of the UK’s most impressive conservation projects and the people involved in them, while offering practical guidance and advice for those considering a career in built heritage.

To find out more about the QEST scholarships and to express interest in applying, click here.

Stone Equipment International has had a nice mention in the Italian multilingual magazine Marmo Macchine International, which has carried a report of how the UK agent for Marmo Meccanica edge polishers helped a company taking part in TV programme DIY SOS complete its task.

Stone Equipment International started this year by concentrating on selling Marmo Meccanica machines in the UK (read more about that here), so an international endorsement from satisfied customers is a welcome intervention.

Andrew and Katie Moxon, owners of Phoenix Worktops in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, related the story of how they offered their services to DIY SOS for the Children in Need Big Build.

They take up the story: “We were huge fans of the show so when the opportunity arose we jumped at the chance to make a difference.

“It was quite a long build up to the show and we had to keep everything secret, not even telling friends, family or employees we were taking part until the very last minute.

“However, two weeks before we were due to take part our old 2006 Marmo Meccanica LCV 611 edge polisher died a terrible death. It was one we’d purchased years second hand years before when we first started out as a business. It has been a loyal workhorse but, unfortunately, it was old, well used and obsolete, so we could not find replacement parts.

“It was game over for the machines. We’d purchased our first second-hand bridge saw from from Andy Bell at Stone Equipment International a few years earlier and found him to be helpful and reliable and the machines to be of high quality. Straight away we got in touch with him. Of course, we had to let him into our DIY SOS secret!

“We knew we wanted another Marmo Meccanica edge polisher but as we had grown as a business since we purchased our original second-hand edge polisher, we wanted to go brand new this time. We also wanted to go horizontal as we had done a run of very large islands and had one of the biggest ever booked in for after DIY SOS at 2.9m x 1.9m.

“Andy Bell was amazing!I explained we were signed up to take part in the Children in Need DIY SOS Big Build; that we would have 24 hours from template to fit to turn around the worktops, a large island, bathroom vanity and three cistern tops.

“There was no way we could do this without an edge polisher.

“Straight away Andy jumped into action. He reserved the last Marmo Meccanica LCH 711 he had in stock and within a day he had arranged delivery for the following week.

“He moved his engineers’ work around so the day after it was delivered it was fully installed and up and running.

“Between Andy Bell and Jane, who works in the office with him, the whole process was so smooth and stress free.

“Now down to the amazing machine. As mentioned, we had 24 hours to cut, polish, cnc and install all the quartz required for DIY SOS. The LCH 711 saved us. We literally turned the entire job around in 17 hours (with a four-hour nap). The pieces were coming off perfectly polished and bevelled – no need to hand polish at all. It was so quick and the finish was such high quality.

“Since DIY SOS the edge polisher has definitely become an integral part of our business. It has hugely cut our turnaround times; it has made the fabrication process run even smoother.

“The finished polish – even on the harder to polish black granite and quartz, is coming off perfect. We can’t recommend this machine enough. It’s a real game changer.

“For those other fabricators in the UK, we highly recommend Andy Bell and his team at Stone Equipment International.”

The latest figures from the Department for Education covering the 2021/2022 academic year show that apprenticeship starts fell by 13% compared with 2018/2019, with the number successfully completing their apprenticeships down 7%.

Covid no doubt played its part in that, but nevertheless the decrease in apprenticeship uptake and completion has added to the problem of businesses struggling to find skilled talent, while still apparently being reluctant to hire and grow their own.

Training workers could help close the skills gaps, but with the UK predicted to be heading into an economic recession and business costs having increased rapidly, organisations are less able to afford training, creating even more barriers to skills development and workforce entry.

You might think engaging with the Apprenticeship Levy, which subsidises the costs of training, could be a key solution to this problem, but a new survey has found that just 4% of levy-paying employers have used their full levy funding in the past five years, with 94% reporting at least one barrier to accessing it.

The results of the survey are presented in a report called Levying Up: Delivering Sustainable Skills from City & Guilds and the 5% Club.

The 5% Club was founded by Leo Quinn, CEO of Balfour Beatty, in October 2013 to address the issue of poverty arising from high youth unemployment and a shortage of the right skills for the workplaces of today and tomorrow. The 5% relates to the aim of members to have 5% of the workforce in 'earn and learn' positions within five years of joining the Club.

‘Earn and learn’ describes the routes into and within employment (including apprenticeships, sponsored students and graduates on formalised training schemes) that combine study with practical experience, enabling individuals to gain the knowledge and skills required to pursue their chosen occupation.

Levying Up: Delivering Sustainable Skills reports on the results of research among 1,000 human resources (HR) leaders at apprenticeship levy-paying businesses across the country.

It reviews the apprenticeship system and explores ways it could be adapted to meet the needs of employers more effectively, support industry skills requirements and provide opportunities for individuals involved.   

One of the ways it could be improved, it concludes, is to scrap the idea of reducing funding for Level 2 apprenticeships like the natural stone industry’s Trailblazer, which is something Michelle Turner, who Chairs the Natural Stone Industry Training Group (NSITG), has consistently called for. It was the NSITG which worked so hard to create the Stone Trailblazer.

The City & Guilds and 5% Club survey found that the apprenticeship levy is currently not working as many employers believe it should.

It shows that apprenticeship levy-paying employers are using an average of just 55.5% of available funds, with 94% reporting at least one barrier to accessing the funds available.   

18% of respondents stated that accessing levy funds involves too much bureaucracy and / or administration, with 17% saying they do not have enough time to invest and 19% saying they could not commit to the length of time an apprenticeship takes to complete.  

Most HR leaders did not want the levy scrapped, but 43% said they would prefer to shift towards a 50:50 model, whereby half the levy is ring fenced for apprenticeships and the other half is more flexible, allowing businesses to identify the best way to use the money to meet their skills needs. 

Levying Up: Delivering Sustainable Skills has the following recommendations: 

Introduce a broader skills levy with more flexibility on how employers can spend levy funding.

Cancel plans to reduce Level 2 apprenticeships. Reducing the number of Level 2 apprenticeships excludes a number of young people and people from less advantaged backgrounds from workplace training and opportunities to upskill. As many of these people are not ready for level 3 apprenticeships and not all companies offer level 3 roles as their entry point, if Level 2 apprenticeships were to be reduced, opportunities for these groups would be further restricted.  

Introduce modular learning options. Employers would benefit from standardised, levy-funded bitesize learning. An apprenticeship requires a significant commitment of time, both for the employer and the apprentice, which is not always practical. With a modular approach, leaders could pick and choose more compact qualifications and training to meet skills needs and employees could upskill more easily throughout their careers.  

Use unspent levy to address labour market shortages. Given the UK’s current labour market shortages, the Department for Education and HM Treasury could work together to ensure that unspent apprenticeship levy funding was spent on programmes designed to reduce skills shortages in the sectors that are most affected.  

You can download the 42-page Levying Up: Delivering Sustainable Skills report here or by clicking on the link below.

The Natural Stone Industry Training Group has been selected by City & Guilds to be part of a pilot for its Professional Recognition Award.

The pilot is free of charge to two candidates. NSITG Chair, Michelle Turner, will be mentor for the candidates.

The C&G Professional Recognition Awards offer the opportunity for professionals to gain an accredited award in leadership and management, providing a progression route from Level 4 to Level 7. 

Successful candidates are granted appropriate post-nominal letters: Licentiate (LCGI) at Level 7, Affiliate (AfCGI), Graduate (GCGI) and Member (MCGI) at Level 4.

Anyone interested in taking part in the pilot should contact NSITG Training Officer Claire Wallbridge on claire@nsitg.org.uk / Tel: 07511464346.

She says that as this is bound to be popular, she asks that interest is registered by Wednesday 8 February and places will be given on a first come first served basis.

For more about the Professional Recognition Awards on the City & Guilds website click here.

With MPs of the All Party Paliamentary Group (APPG) for Respiratory Health having published their up-dated report on silicosis this month calling for a return to silicosis being a reportable industrial disease (read more about that here), the timing could not have been better for the Worktop Fabricators Federation (WFF) meeting concentrating on the control of dust, particularly respirable crystalline silica (RCS), on 23 January.

The meeting was held at the impressive premises of WFF member Granite Tops in Preston, Lancashire, where Brian Robertson and his team had put a lot of work into making the day such a success, including setting up a break-out room for a case-study from the company's specialist advisers who installed the Granite Tops at-station dust extraction system based on water-wash technology from the aerospace industry. Brian also scrambled his H&S consultant, Anjum Choudray, to provide roving free advice to the guests.

Another of the Parliamentary group’s recommendations to Parliament is that a feasibility study should be carried out by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) into halving the RCS Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL) to 0.05mg/m3, which waves a warning flag over the worktop sector and was one of the reasons this was the WFF's best attended meeting yet (although a growing membership is another reason). 

If the WEL is halved, it raises fresh challenges for professional fabricators – challenges that WFF members were able to discuss with industry experts at their meeting in Preston.  

WFF General Secretary Chris Pateman says: "The sheer number of folks who travelled to Preston on a Monday morning says something about how seriously professional worktop fabricators take their responsibilities."

But the WFF is also concerned that halving the WEL opens up the whole question of how to legislate, and enforce legislation, for those who buy blanks and set up in their customers’ gardens with trestles, an angle-grinder and a pair of goggles.

As Chris Pateman says, it’s not clear from the APPG’s report that the MPs are even aware of this particular dynamic in the industry. He says that by its very nature this ‘spot exposure’ end of the market is almost impossible for HSE to monitor or police, and is another good reason for consumers, kitchen companies and designers to ensure the professionals of the WFF are making and fitting their worktops.

The MPs were also impressed by the Trolex Air XS real-time silica dust monitor launched last year, calling on the HSE to promote the idea of real-time dust monitoring with those who face exposure to it – and HSE says some 600,000 people in construction are exposed to RCS each year, making it second only to asbestos in terms of lung health risks in the industry.

Even before the British-made Trolex unit was launched, the WFF was given a preview of it from the manufacturer at one of the WFF meetings. At the January meeting members received an up-date from Simon Bradbury from Stone Industry Group (SiG), which is selling the machines to the stone industry. They are not cheap at about £10,000 each, but the WFF is exploring the idea of hiring units for the benefit of its members. Simon faced lots of people asking lots of questions in the light of the APPG report.

Natalie Tinsley, who leads on stone and glass dust for the HSE, brought the WFF members up to speed on the results of the HSE's dust enforcement campaign in the autumn and the HSE's subsequent actions on dust exposure. 

Lastly, and perhaps a little peripherally, Kate Walker from the Diabetes Safety Organisation (DSO) launched WFF-branded support materials for the ‘one less’ campaign to raise awareness if diabetes. This was a follow-on to the incredibly well-received presentation Kate delivered at the WFF meeting in Warrington in September.

Everyone’s heard of diabetes, and some of those at the meeting on Monday put their hands up to having it or having a relative who does. But it’s not widely understood. So it’s one of those subjects that is more interesting to more people than you might expect.  

The WFF interest in it initially came from the risks associated with somebody suddenly feinting while part of a four-man crew trying to carry a stone worktop up several flights of stairs. Since then, it seems to have developed something of a life of its own within WFF – another example of what comes out of best-practice sharing by people in the same trade.

All that and a curry for lunch (or an alternative for those who didn't want curry).

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has launched a survey of stonemasonry in Scotland to better understand the current status of the sector.

The survey seeks to gather information on the number of stonemasons there are in Scotland, where the businesses that employ stonemasons are based, and the need for stonemasonry skills across the country. 

The survey is the first in a series HES plans to carry out to examine stonemasonry in Scotland. It is an action arising out of the work of the Stonemasonry Training Working Group of sector partners and stakeholders, convened by HES.

The data gathered will be used as a first step to building understanding of how the stonemasonry sector looks across different parts of Scotland, and ensuring it is equipped to meet the challenges of the future.

The hope is the data can be used for better sector engagement and consultation, as ideas and proposals on the future of stonemasonry training are developed.

HES supports the delivery of stonemasonry skills training at its Skills Training Centres in Elgin and Stirling, in partnership with Forth Valley College.

Colin Tennant, Head of Technical Education and Training at HES, said: "With our built environment in Scotland predominantly made of stone, it is crucial we ensure a continuing supply of trained stonemasons to repair, maintain and conserve this heritage.

"Stonemasonry is also a sustainable traditional skill which supports both green jobs and a circular economy, which helps maximise our existing resources, crucial for our national net-zero ambitions.

"We want to ensure the sector can thrive into the future, which is why we’re launching this survey to gather information that will help us build a comprehensive picture of stonemasonry in Scotland.

"To help us do that, we would urge as many stonemasons and employers as possible to take part in the survey."

Scottish stone companies can complete the survey by clicking here.

 The survey closes on Tuesday 28 February.