Ochre mining project in Gloucestershire threatened by funding delays

A scheme to train up a new generation of Gloucestershire ochre miners, could be jeopardised by funding delays.

Jonathan Wright, who owns Clearwell Caves in the Forest of Dean, wants to recruit a team of young people to learn from the area's miners directly.

He has been awarded Heritage Lottery Funding but has to go through an 18-month development period first.

He said: "A lot of these miners are very elderly people and it worries me because we can't really delay this."

The caverns near Coleford were mined for iron ore and ochre - a natural earth pigment - for more than 4,000 years before their closure in 1945.

Since then they have been run as a working museum, attracting about 50,000 visitors each year.

"Most of the iron miners have gone and we need an injection of fresh blood," said Mr Wright.

"But an 18 month development stage is quite a long time and one of the problems is that people are dying quite rapidly now because a lot of these miners are very elderly people."

The project is one of 50 Foresters' Forest schemes, in line for a share of a £3m Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) pot.

A spokesman for the group said that HLF operated the programme on a national basis and the "deadline dates are fixed".

"As it is a complex partnership involving the 50 projects and lots of different organisations, this development period is to enable every project to refine their idea to create a detailed project plan," he said.

"Funds cannot be brought forward because the stage two application for Foresters' Forest won't be assessed until March 2017."