UK Coal ’ greenwash’ Durham planner’s! OPENCAST looks likely (near where Winter Moot will be in February)

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners agreed to an appli­ca­tion by UK Coal to cre­ate four habi­tat ponds for wildlife near Leadgate, Con­sett, Coun­ty Durham.

The com­pa­ny, which plans to extract 556,000 tonnes from the Bradley site, an area of 73,000 square meters in the Der­went Val­ley between the vil­lages of Leadgate and Dip­ton, was hin­dered by the pres­ence of the tiny ani­mals on a pond in the mid­dle of the area where it wants to mine. Now that coun­cil­lors have approved the plans to cre­ate new ponds UK Coal will pro­ceed with its appli­ca­tion to mine.

A spokesman for the com­pa­ny said: “The pro­pos­als are to cre­ate a site of nature con­ser­va­tion involv­ing addi­tion­al plant­i­ng and land­scap­ing and new ponds on part of the site to form an extend­ed wildlife habi­tat from the adja­cent Billing­side Wood Site of Nature Con­ser­va­tion Impor­tance.

“The appli­ca­tion for habi­tat ponds in con­struc­tion terms is rel­a­tive­ly minor in nature and has the poten­tial for sig­nif­i­cant con­ser­va­tion and habi­tat enhance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the local area.”

Eight let­ters of objec­tion includ­ing respons­es from the Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship and the Pont Val­ley Net­work were received.

Objec­tors argued that the appli­ca­tion is part of the inten­tion to open­cast the site, known as the Bradley site and should not be treat­ed sep­a­rate­ly.

But senior plan­ning offi­cer Mike Hemp­sall said the two appli­ca­tions had to be treat­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly.

He said: “The pro­pos­al pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for addi­tion­al habi­tats that would be of eco­log­i­cal and land­scape ben­e­fit to the area and can be car­ried out in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly accept­able man­ner.

“The stat­ed grounds of objec­tion con­cern­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the appli­ca­tion sep­a­rate to the sur­face coal mine appli­ca­tion, archae­o­log­i­cal, land­scape char­ac­ter, effects on pub­lic rights of way and wildlife impact are not con­sid­ered suf­fi­cient to lead to rea­sons to refuse the appli­ca­tion.”

UK Coal says the open­cast pro­pos­al would cre­ate 38 jobs, pro­duce 556,000 tonnes of coal need­ed for the British steel or elec­tric­i­ty indus­try, and pro­vide a new con­ser­va­tion area after min­ing is com­plet­ed with­in three years. It intends to for­mal­ly sub­mit a plan­ning appli­ca­tion in the new year.

But Durham Coun­ty coun­cil­lor Watts Stelling said: “This area has been rav­aged by indus­try in the past and should now be allowed to recov­er.

“Every­body knows the two appli­ca­tions are linked. UK Coal is not build­ing new ponds due to any fond­ness for Great Crest­ed Newts. It wants to dig a great big hole in attrac­tive coun­try­side.”

It should be not­ed that Durham wildlife trust did­n’t even respond when asked for an opin­ion by Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil maybe this is because lots of fund­ing for wildlife trusts comes from the aggre­gate indus­try or maybe their just lazy!

GOOD NEWS!!!
FAMILIES in a rur­al ham­let are call­ing on a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny to aban­don its bid for an open­cast mine in the Northum­ber­land coun­try­side after plan­ners firm­ly reject­ed the con­tro­ver­sial scheme.

Cam­paign­ers in tiny Hal­ton Lea Gate near Halt­whis­tle say they are “over­joyed” after coun­ty coun­cil­lors vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to refuse per­mis­sion to dig 140,000 tonnes of coal from a 75-acre site, with­in the North Pen­nines Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.

They urged appli­cant HM Project Devel­op­ments to “get the mes­sage”, admit defeat and not launch an appeal against the deci­sion.

HM Project Devel­op­ments’ agent, New­cas­tle-based firm Black­ett, Hart and Pratt, did not com­ment.