SKaCH was formed approximately six months ago from a group of people with diverse backgrounds who are concerned that the SEEDA planning application for the regeneration of the Snowdown Colliery site would leave nothing of the coalmining heritage of Snowdown except some fenced off trees and a notice board, and would therefore remove the last remaining links with the Coal Industry in Kent. To compound this, there appears to be at the moment a glut of unused industrial capacity across the area from the developing industrial estates around Dover to the renamed, regenerated colliery sites.

We feel that there is a poverty of ideas from SEEDA and DDC when it comes to dealing with the old colliery sites and their communities. The legacy is a historic mixture of peoples from all over the country who came to work in Kent and Snowdown and the last group of truly Monumental Mining Buildings. These buildings are also a massive store of embodied energy that should be reused if at all possible.

To prove our assertions that the buildings are of regional and possibly national importance we asked through the Industrial Building Preservation Trust for an English Heritage inspection As a result two of the buildings, The Koepe Winding Engine House and the Fan House, have been listed as Grade 2 and the others although not listed are referred to as "important locally". We are confident that new uses can be found for most of the buildings on the site, and towards this aim we have commissioned a Scoping Study which will point the way for a full Feasibility Study. The Scoping Study is underway thanks to Aylesham Parish Council but we need to fund raise for the cost of the full Feasibility Study which may be something over £15000.Some money has been promised from SEEDA but we will clearly need to raise a substantial amount ourselves.