SLR supports Cornish Lithium to advance sustainable lithium development in Cornwall

Image credit: Cornish Lithium

SLR is supporting Cornish Lithium across a range of multidisciplinary sustainability, regulatory, and geoscience workstreams, helping the company progress its plans to develop a secure domestic supply of lithium to support the UK's decarbonisation, energy transition, and battery production supply chain.

Cornish Lithium is a pioneering mineral exploration and development company focused on responsibly extracting lithium from geothermal waters and hard rock resources in Cornwall. The company's projects are helping to establish a domestic source of a critical mineral required for electric vehicles and energy storage systems, while supporting economic growth in the region.

SLR's support to the Trelavour Lithium Project spans multiple technical disciplines, from mine engineering, hydrogeology and geotechnical engineering, through permitting, water management and geochemistry, to further specialist input on discharge modelling, land quality, flood assessment and programme management. SLR has brought together sustainability specialists, environmental professionals and geoscientists to help Cornish Lithium navigate complex project requirements and decision-making processes. The team is providing subject matter expertise and delivery capabilities across a range of interconnected workstreams.

As part of this collaboration, SLR has welcomed the opportunity to work with Defra on the UK’s first mining project to pilot the Lead Environmental Regulator (LER) model. This model offers a valuable opportunity to streamline planning, permitting and licensing processes across multiple regulatory agencies for major developments. SLR already has a key role in effectively communicating complex technical analysis and modelling outputs.

"Cornish Lithium is playing an important role in the development of a secure and sustainable domestic lithium supply for the UK. We are proud to support the company across a broad range of sustainability, regulatory, and geoscience disciplines.

Our teams are helping to bring together complex technical information, specialist expertise and programme delivery capabilities to support informed decision-making. We have particularly welcomed the opportunity to work with the LER model as an effective way of navigating planning and permitting regimes conveying complex analysis and modelling, which might otherwise slow the appraisal of cross-cutting issues.”

Alison Allen, SLR’s EMEA Mining Sector Lead

"We value SLR's multidisciplinary expertise and collaborative approach. Their support across a range of sustainability and geoscience work areas is helping us address complex challenges and advance our projects efficiently."

George Howe, VP Group Sustainability & Consenting Manager at Cornish Lithium

As demand for critical minerals continues to grow, collaboration between industry, regulators and technical specialists will be essential to developing responsible, resilient domestic supply chains that support net zero ambitions and long-term economic growth.