Category: Climate Chaos

18th June 2008 – For imme­di­ate release
Leave it in the Ground 07852 460871

Today cli­mate cam­paign­ers from ‘Leave it in the Ground’ have occu­pied the UK Coal’s Lodge House site in Der­byshire by bar­ri­cad­ing them­selves in a dis­used farm build­ing and tak­en to the trees on the site of the open cast mine.

Under the cov­er of dark­ness activists have secured them­selves in the Prospect Farm build­ing on the site which is about to be dev­as­tat­ed by huge machines. Food and sup­plies have also been tak­en in for a long term occu­pa­tion and bar­ri­cades’ have been set up pre­vent­ing police form bring­ing in spe­cial­ist equip­ment down Bell Lane, Smal­l­ey Der­byshire into the heart of the site. Sim­i­lar­ly, peo­ple are locked on by their necks behind the doors pre­vent­ing force being used to gain entry. The pro­test­ers are claim­ing squatter’s rights.

At Lodge House today, Andy Green said “We are here because the sin­gle great­est threat to the cli­mate comes from burn­ing coal. Coal fired gen­er­a­tion is his­tor­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble for most of the CO2 in the air today – about half of all car­bon diox­ide emis­sions glob­al­ly. Coal form open cast mines is dirt­i­er than that from deep mines, so it is even worse!”

Lodge house is owned by UK Coal, Britain’s largest coal com­pa­ny who plan to extract one mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 122 hec­tor site. Pro­tes­tors claim this will dev­as­tate the area. Local coun­cils, res­i­dents and local envi­ron­men­tal groups have all object­ed to the plans, how­ev­er, the Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Hilary Benn grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in 2007 and work is set to com­mence immi­nent­ly.

New open cast mines are being active­ly sup­port­ed by the gov­ern­ment and the num­ber of open­cast mines going into the plan­ning process and being approved is on the increase.

The Leave it in the Ground, is part of the Net­work for Cli­mate Action (2) and its allies, has seen over a dozen actions take place around the UK includ­ing the occu­pa­tion of a coal train head­ing for Drax pow­er sta­tion. Protests have focused on the com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for run­away car­bon diox­ide emis­sions, as well as those pro­mot­ing false solu­tions to cli­mate change.

“We are tak­ing action to pre­vent the coal indus­try bent on eco­nom­ic growth from destroy­ing our future,” said Julie Lee from Leave it in the Ground. “If Gor­don Brown gives the go ahead to a new gen­er­a­tion of coal fired pow­er sta­tions begin­ning with Kingsnorth in Kent, it will under­mine – per­haps fatal­ly — Britain’s chances of meet­ing its cli­mate change tar­gets. If Britain is to cut its emis­sions by 80% by 2050, the eight planned new coal pow­er-fired plants alone will wipe out half of our car­bon bud­get.”

A fur­ther demon­stra­tion is planned for 14th July at UK Coal’s Head quar­ters in Don­cast­er.

For inter­views and more infor­ma­tion about today’s action at Lodge House con­tact:
Andy PHONE NUMBER 07852 460871
EMAIL derby@earthfirst.org.uk

** Updates will be avail­able through­out the day at
http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com or from 07852 460871 **

Notes to edi­tors.

1. UK coal’s head­quar­ters is sit­u­at­ed at Har­worth Park, Blyth Road, Har­worth, Don­cast­er DN11 8DB.

2. To com­bat open-cast min­ing, a new action group “Leave it in the Ground” has formed, sup­port­ed by Earth First! As well as oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups.

3. UK coal has sub­mit­ted plan­ning appli­ca­tions for 5 new sites:
(Site and Poten­tial Ton­nage)
Pot­land Burn, Northum­ber­land 2,000,000 tonnes
Park Wall North, Co. Durham 1,275,000 tonnes
Bradley, Co. Durham 550,000 tonnes
Hunt­ing­ton Lane, Shrop­shire 900,000 tonnes
Blair House, Fife 700,000 tonnes

It is pro­posed that the 122 hectare site will pro­duce one mil­lion tonnes of coal over five years, after which the land will be ‘returned back to its nat­ur­al state’. How­ev­er, UK Coal will not be able to replace ancient edges and mature trees, and their licence enables the com­pa­ny to expand beyond the 122 hectares with­out need­ing fur­ther per­mis­sion

Coal is the dirt­i­est form of pow­er gen­er­a­tion known to man. Top NASA James Hansen recent­ly remarked: “The only prac­ti­cal way to pre­vent CO2 lev­els from going far into the dan­ger­ous range, with dis­as­trous effects for human­i­ty and oth­er inhab­i­tants of the plan­et, is to phase out use of coal except at pow­er plants where the CO2 is cap­tured and sequestered.”

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The house and site has been dubbed Bodge House.

We need more peo­ple on site to make addi­tion­al prepa­ra­tions and secure oth­er areas to stop open cast­ing and build long term home.

Sup­plies are also need­ed

Site phone 07503 335870

Most of all we need peo­ple to come down and stay on the site. It is a beau­ti­ful area, with much wildlife, and easy access to pub­lic trans­port. Come down and vis­it!

See here for direc­tions & map — take pub­lic trans­port to Ship­ley Coun­try Park or oth­er near­by place, then make for Prospect Farm, marked on the map.

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Wish list:

Water: Please bring lots when you come as there is cur­rent­ly no run­ning water on site.

scaf­fold, tar­pau­lin, planks, large nails, polyprop espe­cial­ly 8mm, 10mm and 12mm (but any rope is good)

sand and cement

Climb­ing tat — ropes, har­ness’ cara­bi­nas, belay plates, d‑locks, pad­locks and chains, car­go net­ting,

Blan­kets, car­pets, quilts, sleep­ing bags, ham­mocks,

bow­saws, burn­ers, plas­tic sheets, shov­els and oth­er tools, torch­es, hur­ri­cane lamps and head torch­es.

Axes, bat­ter­ies (car and torch), bolt crop­pers, buck­ets, can­dles, fish­ing line, flex­i­flue and cut­ting gear,

food (tinned is good, dried food par­tic­u­lar­ly things like fruit and nuts is fan­tas­tic, fresh fruit and veg is real­ly appre­ci­at­ed) cook­ing pans and cut­lery, mugs and plates first aid, gen­er­a­tors, paraf­fin, refuse sacks, rope, string, tents, ther­mos flasks, tin stor­age (ammo) box­es, water butts.

Nylon crane net­ting, pul­leys, loud­hail­ers, para­chutes, ruck­sacks, steel cable,

Clothes, Boots, warm clothes and socks, water­proof cloth­ing, wellies.

Musi­cians, climbers, mechan­ics, car­pen­ters, heal­ers, bak­ers, solic­i­tors, spon­sors, poets, friend­ly shop keep­ers, trad­er exchange, nature-lovers and every­one else too!

Trans­port

Bicy­cles and tools.

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access to site

19th June
The chap at the Lodge on Bell Lane is not let­ting peo­ple past and claim­ing he owns the road (he is an angry farmer with dog).

Alter­na­tive access is from ship­ley — when com­ing from heanor, turn right off A6007 (Ilke­ston rd) as you leave ship­ley (into ‘the field’), turn right onto tar­mac road after the stein­er school (one left) and go up this road. Bear left past bridge and lake on right and turn right through gate just before big house. You are now on Bell lane and site is the house next to road works after bridge.

if you go take lots of water

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Papers served and anoth­er protest

The farm house on the prospec­tive open cast coal site that was squat­ted this week has receieved its papers.

It will be tak­en to court on 30th June at 10 am at Der­by Com­bined Court Cen­tre, Morledge, Der­by, DE1 2XE by Har­worth Estates Agri­cul­tur­al Land Ltd (part of the UK Coal Con­glom­er­ate).

The peo­ple on site are putting a call out for peo­ple to come and stay on the site and help out. If you have ever fan­cied your hand at pro­tect­ing beau­ti­ful land against the cap­i­tal­ist machine, nows your chance!

There will be a protest/show of sup­port is planed for the 30th June at Der­by com­bined courts, The Morledge, Der­by.

Come and show your sup­port with a fun lit­tle protest at 9am.