Villagers unite in coal plans fight

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OPPOSITION to plans for an open-cast mine in Cossall is growing.

UK Coal revealed in May that it was considering mining at the Shortwood Farm site in Cossall, almost a decade after previous plans were withdrawn.

New information now shows the company has gathered background information and is getting ready to make a planning application to set up the mine.

Villagers plan to hold a public meeting next week with the aim of forming an action group to fight the scheme.

Jane Burd, of Notts Against new Coal, said: “The information we have received via the Freedom of Information Act has given us a heads up on UK Coal’s plan and will give us time to prepare our counter-argument.

“It says not only that they propose to submit a planning application, but has diagrams of where it is going to be. We’re fairly certain in the next few weeks they’ll be making a move.

“I would urge anyone who lives nearby, whether they have environmental interests or not, to come along to the meeting because if this goes ahead, it will affect their lives.”

Correspondence unearthed by the Freedom of Information request included an email from a planning consultant to Broxtowe Borough Council.

It said: “UK Coal propose to submit a planning application for the extraction of coal and fireclay at a site of agricultural land at Shortwood Farm, which lies between the villages of Cossall to the north and Trowell to the south in the district of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire.

“The development would extract in the order or 1.8 to 2.0 million tonnes over a 5.5-year period.”

Stuart Oliver, of UK Coal, said the consultant’s inquiries were “part of the evaluation process” as it had not yet decided which sites to take forward first.

“The process of evaluating Shortwood Farm and where it sits in our programme is ongoing,” he said. “We’ve got several schemes we’re looking at in the coalfield areas and I’d think by mid-October we would have a clearer picture as to where the priority schemes will be.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. But within a month we hope to be in a position to say A, B or C are going to be put in to the next planning application phase to maintain an annual output of surface mines in the order of two million tonnes.”

He added: “There has been a lot of work on the Shortwood Farm scheme but it is ten years since that was withdrawn.”

The public meeting is on Wednesday at the Festival Inn in Trowell, at 7pm. Broxtowe MP Nick Palmer, Anna Soubry, prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives and Ken Rigby, Liberal Democrat County Coun for Cossall and Trowell are due to attend.

From: This is Nottingham

Anti-opencast campaigner claims council ‘persecution’

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A CAMPAIGNER against one of Europe’s biggest opencast coal mines has become one of the first people in the world to bring a case under a little-known international convention.

Solicitors acting for Elizabeth Condron have lodged a formal complaint under the Aarhus Convention against the UK Government.

The convention, which the Government has signed up to, guarantees citizens access to justice in environmental matters.

Mrs Condron has campaigned against the Ffos-y-Fran opencast site, near Merthyr Tydfil, which comes to within 40 metres of some residents’ homes.

She has been given permission to go to the Court of Appeal to challenge a judge’s decision to reject her attempt to get planning permission for an adjacent processing plant revoked. Mrs Condron argues that under European law, the council should have insisted on an environmental impact assessment of the plant before permission was granted.

Neighbours of the opencast site have complained that noise and dust from the site are intolerable.

Mrs Condron has been granted public funding by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to go to the Court of Appeal, but in an almost unprecedented move, Merthyr Council is challenging the decision of the LSC to fund the appeal.

Now the Aarhus Convention is investigating a complaint that by making the legal challenge, Merthyr Council has “penalised, persecuted and harassed” Mrs Condron. For protocol reasons, the complaint has been made formally against the UK Government. The Convention’s compliance committee, made of legal experts, has agreed to investigate the complaint.

This week a judge who studied case papers at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre rejected the council’s attempt to overturn the LSC’s decision to fund Mrs Condron, but the authority can still pursue the matter via a full court hearing.

Environmental lawyer Paul Stookes, who represents Mrs Condron, said: “The council’s attempt to get her public funding stopped is an unprecedented attempt to deprive her of her rights. The LSC does not approve legal aid lightly – around 80% of applications involving civil cases are turned down. There are rigorous checks, and after considering the circumstances of this case, the LSC decided Mrs Condron’s case had merit. The Court of Appeal has agreed to hear the case, which confirms it was a case worth supporting.

“If Merthyr Council’s challenge were successful, it would undermine the basis of the legal aid system. The worst case scenario from Mrs Condron’s point of view is that she could become liable for legal costs amounting to many thousands of pounds.

“It is our view that the council is clearly seeking to stop Mrs Condron from asserting her environmental rights under the Aarhus Convention. We have therefore lodged a formal complaint with the Convention’s secretariat and an investigation is now under way. I understand this is the first example ever of a complaint made under the terms of the convention.”

A spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said: “We fund more than two million civil and criminal cases every year. Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council has launched a judicial review in order to obtain details of the case brought by a legally aided client. Such cases are unusual and the LSC believes that it would be inappropriate to provide this information.

“The LSC is taking steps to robustly defend the judicial review. However, the LSC is unable to comment further on the case due to the possibility of prejudicing the on-going legal action.”

The council did not respond to our request for a statement.

The Aarhus Convention came into being in 2001, and has been signed by more than 40 countries plus the European Union. The Convention guarantees “rights of access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters”. Mrs Condron’s complaint has been made under Article 3(8) of the Convention, which states: “Each party shall ensure that persons exercising their rights in conformity of the provisions of this Convention shall not be penalised, persecuted or harassed in any way for their involvement”.

From: Wales Online

Opencast mining on Broughton Moor dump is only solution

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EXPERTS claim that opencast coal mining is the only solution for the Broughton Moor site, a former senior member of Allerdale council’s Derwent Forest project team revealed this week.

The statement by Nick Fardon, former director of strategic resources, is bound to cause shock waves after the council’s regeneration chief David Martin last year said that opencast coal mining would be ruled out as part of any redevelopment of the 1,050-acre site.

Mr Fardon left the council on Friday. In an exclusive interview with the Times & Star, he said the only way that Broughton Moor would ever make financial sense would be to extract an estimated three million tonnes of coal from under the site and use the profits for the Derwent Forest project.

He said: “It’s the only thing that makes economic sense. I’ve read reports from experts, I spoke to these experts. I’ve spoken to people who want to develop the site. They agree that coal needs to be mined to reap the profits.

“It’s an emotional subject, as the council has promised in the past there would never be mining on there, but if you think about it logically, we have to clear the contaminated ground; if you’re going in there to churn up the ground anyway, you may as well get the coal out.

“In that hole, you can put any contaminated bits and you’ve made a profit to put into anything you want to on that site.

“To say there will never be coal mining there is a promise that no-one should have made as it certainly cannot be kept. It makes no economic sense to do so.”

Last year it was revealed that the Kier Group had bought coal rights to the 1,050-acre site, although it would still need planning permission to start mining.

The former RNAD armaments depot is the largest brown field site in the north, and Allerdale council took out an option to buy the land for £1 from owner the Ministry of Defence several years ago.

Wrangling over clean-up cash from the Northwest Development Agency put back the project, and a couple of years ago Allerdale joined with Cumbria County Council to buy the land.

It is now being marketed to private investors, and so far has had more than 50 expressions of interest in it.

The area is a key part of the Government’s Britain’s Energy Coast masterplan.

The Dump, as it is known locally, has 110 World War Two buildings. Several are used as roosts for bats, which are a protected species.

It is understood that the council can only demolish those buildings during October, when the bats are not there. It is unlikely that this work will happen next month.

Mr Fardon, who took voluntary redundancy, declined to comment on which firms had expressed an interest or what the situation was with the development agency.

It was reported last year that the agency would sell the Dump to the highest bidder by 2011, if efforts to land a regeneration scheme failed. If the councils succeed in signing up a developer, the agency will provide £9m to clean up contamination. But if the marketing exercise fails, the site will be re-sold on the open market.

From: Times & Star

Action group is formed to fight opencast plans

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AN action group has been launched in the Gwendraeth Valley to fight plans for a controversial opencast mine.

The group is run by volunteers, many of whom live in Pontyberem’s Railway Terrace and Capel Ifan Road.

It follows talks between residents, Llanelli MP Nia Griffith and AM Helen Mary Jones — who are also against the mine scheme.

Proposals for such mining in Pentremawr, which is between Pontyberem and Ponthenri, were submitted to Carmarthenshire Council by developer Draeth back in 2008.

Villagers are now being given the opportunity to air their views to county council and company officials during another public meeting.

The event has been organised by Ms Griffith and Ms Mary Jones, and will be held in Ponthenri Community Hall, on Thursday, September 24.

From: This is South Wales

Opencast campaign to continue with open meeting

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CAMPAIGNERS are ready to grill county council chiefs over a proposed opencast mine in Measham.

The Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) is hoping to get answers to 10 questions at a meeting tomorrow night.

UK Coal wants to extract 1.25 million tonnes of coal and 250,000 tonnes of fire clay off Gallows Lane.

Members of the development control and regulatory board at Leicestershire County Council, which will make the final decision on the plans, will be at the meeting. MOPG members say they plan to ask questions about UK Coal’s record when it comes to restoring sites, light pollution, the use of buffer zones, the company’s claims about job prospects, and traffic issues.

MOPG chairman Steve Leary said: “This is the only chance people will have to voice their objections directly to those members of the development control and regulatory board.

“It is very important that as many people as possible who are against UK Coal’s proposal attend this meeting. It is regrettable that UK Coal will not formally be represented at the meeting, as there are questions we would have liked to have put which only they can answer, on issues such as employment, restoration of the Ashby Canal and the destination of the fireclay.

“However we now understand that Measham Parish Council is to arrange a public meeting on this application to which UK Coal will be invited.” The meeting will be held from 7pm at St Laurence’s Church Hall, in High Street, Measham.

From: Burton Mail

Where Britain gets it coal

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Great infographics and dat from the Guardian.