Northfleet Cement Works: New Rail Connection

Northfleet Cement Works

New Rail Connection

In December 1997, Blue Circle Industries (so named since 1978, after the re-branding of APCM) announced plans to establish a new state-of-the-art cement works at Holborough, in the Medway Valley, to the tune of £180 million. BCI was absorbed into the empire of French-owned Lafarge in 2001, but the plans were nevertheless perpetuated, and it was in this year that Kent County Council granted planning permission for the new works. The Holborough plant signalled the end of operations at Northfleet, and decommissioning of the works at the latter commenced in May 2008. In that month, two of the site’s kilns were taken out of use – back in 1970, the works had a total of six kilns, with a combined output of four million tonnes of cement a year. A pipeline running underneath the Thames had for long supplied the Northfleet site with clay from BCI’s South Ockendon Quarry, Essex. However, the closure of Northfleet meant that any deliveries from the Essex site would have to be made to other locations by road, which led to Thurrock Council producing a consultation on the matter in 1998. Ten years later, it transpired that the existing operations at South Ockendon were also to cease, although a new aggregate terminal would open on the same site.

Redevelopment plans for the Northfleet Cement Works site make for interesting reading, and tie in with the regeneration of the ‘’Thames Gateway’’, of which the opening of Ebbsfleet International forms a significant part. Proposals suggest that the area will be used for a mixture of housing, shops, and open spaces. In addition, a section of land will be retained by Lafarge for the building of a cement freight terminal, capable of dealing with up to three million tonnes of imported aggregates per annum. The terminal, which has the potential to create nearly 100 new jobs, will be open to three forms of transport: road, river, and railway. Redevelopment work at the site was impending following the announcement, in June 2009, that ‘’Erith Contractors Limited’’ had been hired as demolition contractors – it is proposed to recycle 90% of the waste material from the destruction. Despite the fact that the works of 1969/1970 was still standing, it seemed that no time was wasted in laying a new railway connection, and rails began to appear in Church Path Pit during the following July. The single-track utilises part of the track bed formerly used by the original merry-go-round rail link (which last saw freight traffic in March 1993), and involves re-opening two tunnels through the chalk ridge between the pit and the works site.

The new arrangement at Church Path Pit, including the North Kent Line, CTRL infrastructure, and new and

old connections to the cement works. Drawn by David Glasspool

2nd August 2009

A view of a sunny Church Path Pit reveals the two CTRL sidings in the background, feeding off the spur from

Ebbsfleet International. In the foreground can be seen the newly laid single-track line bound for the cement

works. At this time, the track terminated at the then still blocked-up portal of the eastern tunnel. At the time

of writing, the cement works still stood. © David Glasspool

2nd August 2009

At the time, the line was physically isolated from CTRL metals, but a three-way set of points had already been formed,

feeding off the two CTRL sidings. As will become clear in the later pictures, this was not used as a connection for the

cement works' spur. In the above view, there are rails on three levels: those in the foreground, within Church Path Pit;

the single track behind, which ascends to the North Kent Line; finally, at the very top, the North Kent Line itself.

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