Overview
Cairdshill Quarry
About Cairdshill Quarry
Cairdshill quarry produces an attractive and distinctive golden quartz chip which is largely used for decorative purposes. It has been in operation for nearly 40 years.
The quarry process is relatively simple. The stone is generally broken out of the ground by excavator. Occasionally it is necessary to blast a small section of hard stone. The excavated rock is crushed and screened using a small low level mobile plant. The photo shows all of the quarry plant including the excavator at the face, the processing plant and the wheel shovel which loads the road lorries.
Once loaded lorries are weighed and sheeted, they are despatched via a short local road feeding onto the A96. Cairdshill is a relatively small and very low output quarry in comparison to most aggregate quarries. Typically, only 8 to 10 trucks per day leave the quarry.
Location
Cairdshill quarry is located 1.8km or just over 1 mile to the South of the outskirts of the town of Keith and immediately West of the A96 road to Aberdeen.
The quarry lies adjacent to Blackhillock limestone quarry which is owned and operated by another company. The BEAR road maintenance depot and the Blackhillock substation are also nearby.
Tarmac Caledonian
Tarmac Caledonian Limited is part of Tarmac, the UK’s leading sustainable building materials and construction solutions business.
Tarmac Caledonian operates across the Highland and Moray Councils areas, from Inverness in the West to Keith in the East. We produce and supply a range of essential building materials to construction projects in the region, including crushed rock, sand and gravel, ready mixed concrete, concrete blocks and decorative aggregates. Tarmac also delivers cement made at the Dunbar cement works by rail into the centre of Inverness.
We directly employ 35 people from the local area, and support a significant number of local jobs in the wider community through our use of local contractors, drivers, and suppliers.
Meet the team
Tarmac is a national business with strong roots across the devolved regions. Tarmac Caledonian is proud to employ local people and work with local contractors, haulage firms and suppliers. All the Tarmac Caledonian team live locally.
We are not separate from the community; we are part of it, which is why we understand the importance of being a good neighbour and working with local stakeholders to seek their input into our proposals for the site.
About Tarmac
Tarmac, a CRH company, is the UK's leading sustainable building materials and construction solutions business.
With 150 years of experience and heritage to our name, we're a national network of local businesses, combining the knowledge and expertise of two of the construction industry's most iconic brands: Tarmac, pioneers and inventors of the modern road, and Blue Circle, the company that patented Portland Cement.
We employ around 7,000 people across a network of more than 400 sites across the UK
Tarmac is part of CRH, the world's leading building materials business
Health and safety
Our ambition is to realise continuous improvement for all our employees and contractors
This approach to improving safety extends across our supply chain and to every aspect of our business - from the way we manage sites and the way train and equip our employees and contractors - to the safety features we install in our vehicles to protect road users.
We're proud to work with experts in the field of Health and Safety, such as the British Safety Council and The Health and Safety Executive and are also one of the founding partners of a mental health programme for people working in the construction sector called Mates in Mind.
We also have a brand new National Skills and Safety Park - 'The Park' - that is home to operational onboarding, professional operational training, assessments and health and safety learning, demonstrating our commitment to building the right safety culture as well as creating an enhanced experience for employees.