Cornish wool depot to close as crisis bites

BRITISH Wool has unveiled plans for a major restructuring programme following the “significant detrimental impact” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The organisation, which collects, grades, markets and sells British wool on behalf of producers, says despite successfully clearing the 11 million kgs of unsold wool they had built up at the end of April, the wool market globally “remains extremely challenging”.

As part of the changes, due to come into force for the next shearing season, the number of grading depots operated by British Wool will be cut from 12 to eight - resulting in the closure of depots based in Irvine, Porthmadog, Stamford and, crucially for farmers in the South West, Liskeard.

The depot, located just a stone’s throw away from the town centre at Lamellion, handles approximately one million kilos of wool from 1,500 producers covering the areas of Cornwall and South Devon.

British Wool, which is owned by around 40,000 sheep farmers in the UK, has calculated the move will save £1.5 million per annum, and it says wool from areas where a depot is closing will be reallocated to other grading depots within the network.

Acting chief executive, Andrew Hogley, explained: “It is critical that we make the changes to the grading network, but I want to stress that we will not be changing our levels of service to producers.

“Where we close a grading depot we intend to replace this with a new intermediate depot in the nearby area. This will ensure producers still have a local drop point for their wool with no onward haulage charges.”

He added: “We will contact all affected producers ahead of next season to let them know where the new drop off points will be. We will also continue to take all types of wool from any producer. The sites that we are closing are still open for producers to deliver this season’s wool and will remain so until the middle of February.”