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in May that it was considering mining at the Shortwood Farm site in Cossall, almost a decade after previous plans were withdrawn.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He added: “There has been a lot of work on the Shortwood Farm scheme but it is ten years since that was withdrawn.”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

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

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

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

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

Mr Harvie said: “The local community has found that the democratic process is failing them, so this protest is very helpful.

“When people make a stand like this, it is far more helpful than writing a letter to an MSP or MP.

“It is a more creative use of this pocket of land than digging it up and burning coal.”

South Lanarkshire councillors approved plans for the Mainshill Wood opencast mine in February. Around 1.7 million tonnes of coal and 160,000 tonnes of fireclay will be extracted at the site over a five year period, with the promise of 93 jobs being created.

Protestors remained adamant this week that they would stay on site for ”as long as it takes” to ensure the plans do not go ahead. And a bitter row has erupted between them and Douglas and Angus Estates about a power cable being dug up on the land.

From: Carluke Gazette

In the years following World War 11, tens of thousands of acres of countryside were stripped to make way for coal workings. But such operations were largely abandoned half a century ago after joint protests from conservationists and the then all-powerful National Union of Miners.

But new figures issued yesterday by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) show that since 1999, 120 licences have been issued for opencast coal workings and in many cases, the go-ahead was given despite local councils refusing planning permission.

Only 26 such applications were turned down by Whitehall.

In a press statement headlined “Time to de-throne King Coal” the CPRE claimed that the figures cast doubt on the Government’s often-declared support for clean energy.

Open cast mines, it said, “will accelerate climate change and destroy communities and landscapes.”

The release of such figures will be a major embarrassment to the Government, which is already under fire for allowing the building of a new “clean coal” power station in Kent. But ministers are in a cleft stick: because of the 12 year delay in ordering new nuclear power stations, experts of predicting that Britain will begin to suffer power cuts in eight years time.

From: Daelnet

The research team assisting Measham’s Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) believe they have a case that can be submitted to Leicestershire County Council demonstrating ‘flaws’ in UK Coal’s bid to extract 1.25 million tonnes of coal and 250,000 tonnes of fire clay off Gallows Lane.

They say their claims can be backed after The Environment Agency requested a new set of readings be undertaken on the state of the ground water on the site as they are not happy with the evidence contained in the submission document on this issue.

Campaigners say they are also ‘increasingly aware of the devices that UK Coal has used in submitting a document which claims to include ‘independent’ and ‘objective’ reports which, on closer reading, prove to be biased’ to show the company has the full support of Government planning guidance.

On several occasions in its application, UK Coal claims that Government guidance should give priority to ‘proposals which will bring about environmental improvements for example, by the restoration of previously derelict areas or by the stabilisation of unstable ground’.

In one short section of the submission document, the Socio Economic Assessment, which is just 18 pages long, the claim that the Minorca site (pictured above) has derelict land which will be restored as part of the need to work the coal, and that the ground is unstable, is made twice.

However, protesters contest this, saying UK Coal wants to ‘rip up a green field site’ and that the ground is not unstable.

MOPG chairman Steve Leary said: “This is not the only example of misleading statements contained in this small 18-page section.

“They draw on inappropriate evidence when comparing urban and sub urban brown field sites with a greenfield site, they exaggerate the economic benefits to the local economy, and there are two further deliberately misleadingly interpretations of Government guidance – all within just 18 pages.

“This is a large document, about 1,500 pages long. We are confident that we will be able to draw on many further examples of how UK Coal has used the ‘evidence’ it has submitted to make claims that on closer examination cannot be substantiated.” A public meeting, organised by Leicestershire County Council, will be held at St Laurence’s Church Hall, in High Street, Measham, from 7pm on Thursday, September 17. Concerned residents are invited to attend.

From: Burton Mail

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

Protesters are hoping to get their message across to residents in an unconventional manner prior to three crucial meetings being held this month.

A soapbox will be situated at the village’s Mary’s Corner between 10am and noon on Saturdays, September 5 and 12.

This will mark the beginning of series of events where the Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) will be encouraging people to join its campaign.

Chairman Steve Leary said: “With three important meetings coming up that will help to decide the future local character of the area.It is crucial for MOPG to get its message out that this opencast mine proposal, which very few people actually want, can be stopped.

“This is why we are taking to the streets, so that we can get our message across and encourage more people to support our campaign and help stop this proposal.” To aid the cause of protesters, a campaign meeting will be held in St Laurence’s Church Hall, in High Street, Measham, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm on Monday, September 7.

Leaflet drops will be organised, advice will be provided on writing objection letters, lobbying activities will be organised and fund raising ideas discussed.

Mr Leary said: “Anyone interested in stopping these plans can just drop in to see how they can help.” Campaigners hope the event will help prepare protesters for the trio of important meetings.

Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust members are set to discuss the group’s request for a Health Impact Assessment to be undertaken to assess potential risks to residents at its headquarters in Enderby, Leicester, at 2pm on Thursday, September 10.

A second meeting, being held at 7pm on the same day at St Laurence’s Church Hall, will see Measham Parish Council discussing the need for a 500-metre buffer zone and the potential for organising a debate between campaigners and UK Coal on the proposals.

Residents are also being encouraged to attend a public meeting, organised by Leicestershire County Council, from 7pm at the church hall on Thursday, September 17.

From: Burton Mail