National Elections

If there is any hint of a plan to have an opencast mine in your area or you already unfortunately suffer from one then the period leading up to a National Election is just the time to invite all known prospective parliamentary candidates to a Public Meeting organised by those opposed to opencast mining. At such a meeting each candidate can be asked to speak on their party’s position regarding the role domestically produced coal, especially opencast coal, should play in the energy mix. You can also invite them to speak on whether planning guidance for opencast coal mine applications needs to be amended at all.

After all the candidates have spoken then questions can be invited from the floor.

The local media should love this, so invite them as well and issue press releases leading up to and reporting on the event.

It’s also an opportunity to recruit new members to your cause, so now’s the time to act, before the election is called!!

The other role such meeting can play is to draw each political parties Central Office ‘s attention to this issue if, all of a sudden candidates from different parts of the country, are asking questions on and seeking guidance on their party’s position on the issue of opencast coal. This would be a major achievement if we were able to do this.

Let others know if your group is going to join the Minorca Opencast Protest Group in planning such a Public Meeting.

Local Elections

The Minorca Opencast Protest Group successfully used the Leicestershire County Council elections in 2009 to gain both support and publicity for our campaign, even though no planning application had been submitted. However campaigners have to be careful in any case. Candidates cannot give their opinion on a particular planning application, whether it has or has not been submitted. However, they can give their opinion on aspects of Planning Policy to do with a particular proposed or actual planning application. So MOPG initiated a letter writing campaign aimed at asking each candidate whether they would support amending Leicestershire County Council’s Mineral Planning Policy to include the introduction of a 500 metre buffer zone between areas of settlement and an opencast site as is the norm in Scotland.

This also became the source for a number of news stories, and we will be following up this issue and working with those Councillors who want a change in policy later – but first we in MOPG have to prevent LCC granting planning permission for Minorca.

You can read about this part of our campaign on the Minorca Forum pages on this site.