JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed Scotgold will have to wait longer to hear whether it has been granted planning permission for its revised plans for the Cononish gold and silver project, near the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in Scotland.
A decision by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Parks Planning Authority was expected on December 14, but Scotgold said on Thursday that a determination would only be made in early 2018.
It said that the authority had requested clarifications relating to issues raised by various consultees.
The planning application is for a revision of the extraction and processing operations at Cononish gold mine, originally permitted in 1996 and subsequently in 2012 and 2015.
Scotgold in August submitted a revised planning approval application based on a two-phased approach. The first phase entails a 3 000 t/m operation and the second phase will double capacity.
A new plan, announced in March, changed the tailings storage facility to a dry stack system. The redesigned tailings management plan will result in dry tailings being ‘stacked’ on site, and landscaped into a number of naturalistic moraine landforms, and not a single large tailings management facility.
Scotgold says its revised plan for Cononish has environmental benefits, including facilitating progressive restoration of the site, avoiding the risks associated with the management of wet tailings and an improved final landform.