Category: East Midlands

East Mid­lands

actions against E‑On in Nottingham

15.02.2013

Last night the doors to the Not­ting­ham E‑on Open House on Lis­ter Gate were d‑locked shut in sol­i­dar­i­ty with any­one strug­gling to stay warm this win­ter.

15.02.2013

Last night the doors to the Not­ting­ham E‑on Open House on Lis­ter Gate were d‑locked shut in sol­i­dar­i­ty with any­one strug­gling to stay warm this win­ter.

Eon and their part­ners in crime are not only destroy­ing the plan­et as they extract every last inch of nat­ur­al resources from the ground, they’re also doing their best to fleece each and every­one of us as they raise the prices year in year out. What we did last night was a minor act. Car­ried out by indi­vid­u­als who are dis­gust­ed with the ways in which the cor­po­rate pow­er and greed which goes hand in hand with this sys­tem. It is destroy­ing the plan­et, human beings and every liv­ing thing. We must fight back.
 
Update: I work across the road from the open house. It had to open two hours lat­er than usu­al.
 
——-
 
Stop G8 Notts hit the streets of Not­ting­ham yes­ter­day dis­trib­ut­ing a leaflet that made con­nect­ing the every­day real­i­ty of pover­ty in the city, where peo­ple are forced to choose between eat­ing or stay­ing warm to the cap­i­tal­ist spec­ta­cle of the G8 sum­mit tak­ing place lat­er this year.
Indi­vid­u­als were recep­tive to the mes­sage although many peo­ple did­n’t view them­selves as empow­ered to do any­thing about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. This re-enforced the impor­tance of us being on the streets talk­ing and engag­ing with as many peo­ple as we can, talk­ing about the prob­lems, their caus­es and how we can tack­le them on micro and macro lev­els.

Starv­ing to Sttay Warm

Fuel pover­ty protest against E.on.

Eon and the oth­er five big ener­gy com­pa­nies (EDF, Cen­tri­ca, SSE, Scot­tish Pow­er and npow­er) are a car­tel which con­trols 99% of the domes­tic ener­gy mar­ket. Domes­tic ener­gy prices for us are con­stant­ly ris­ing whilst every year these com­pa­nies declare record prof­its.

Accord­ing to a recent sur­vey, this win­ter 1 in 4 fam­i­lies have had to face a stark choice between heat­ing and eat­ing. Whilst e.on exec­u­tives and share­hold­ers spend bumper prof­its on sec­ond homes and hol­i­days
abroad, peo­ple in the UK are freez­ing because they need to eat.

We are starv­ing to stay warm!

On June the 17th and 18th the G8 world lead­ers will be meet­ing in Fer­managh, North­ern Ire­land, to dis­cuss how to main­tain the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem which enables and jus­ti­fies this day­light rob­bery. While we allow our lives to be gov­erned by these crooks prof­it will always come before peo­ple. The only way to achieve real change is to break from this vicious cycle of exploita­tion, smash cap­i­tal­ism and reor­gan­ise our com­mu­ni­ties in a way which ensures every­one has access to the neces­si­ties of life.

From the 10th of June there will be a week of action, work­shops and meet­ings in Lon­don to protest against the G8 and to work towards build­ing the sort of world that we want to live in

stopg8notts@riseup.net

 

The Clause 21 Growth and Infrastructure Bill Threat: More Info

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

LAON PR 2012- 16                                                               1/12/12

The hid­den top­ic so far, in all the dis­cus­sion about the Ener­gy Bill is what will be its impact on the UK Coal Indus­try. This is a much shrunk­en indus­try, pro­duc­ing around 18m tonnes of coal a year. Last year 59% of that coal was pro­duced by open­cast meth­ods. This year, as the deep min­ing sec­tor con­tin­ues to suf­fer from prob­lems and cost pres­sures are clos­ing mines (on a tem­po­rary basis) at Malt­by and Aper­perg­wm and Daw Mill, our largest pit is almost cer­tain to close, domes­tic coal pro­duc­tion is becom­ing ever more reliant on sur­face min­ing – in the July to Sep­tem­ber quar­ter, of the 4m tonnes of coal the UK pro­duced, 65% now came from sur­face mines.

But even the sur­face mine sec­tor of the coal indus­try is not immune to the cold winds of eco­nom­ic real­ism com­ing from across the Atlantic, as US coal pro­duc­ers, des­per­ate to find a mar­ket for their coal now that it can no longer com­pete with gas in the US domes­tic mar­ket because of the ‘frack­ing rev­o­lu­tion’, send shiploads of coal to Europe at prices that make UK coal pro­duc­tion uncom­pet­i­tive. As a con­se­quence, ATH Resources, a major sur­face mine oper­a­tor has put itself up for sale and stopped devel­op­ment work on its new sites and Scot­tish Coal has asked its work­force to take a 10% pay cut and moth­balled its large Blair House open­cast site in Scot­land inde­fin­ably. It’s just left it as large hole.

Fur­ther­more, the Ener­gy Bill, intro­duced into Par­lia­ment this week is intend­ing to cre­ate a low car­bon gen­er­at­ing sys­tem which is design to squeeze out coal from being part of the fuel mix unless Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) prove itself to be com­mer­cial­ly viable. The Bill will pro­vide for finan­cial dis­in­cen­tives to make it more cost­ly to burn coal in pow­er sta­tions with­out CCS, whilst, at the same time, pro­vide finan­cial incen­tives for exist­ing coal fired pow­er sta­tions to be ful­ly con­vert­ed to burn bio­mass. The result is that Coal Oper­a­tors in the UK are for the fore­see­able future like­ly to see their mar­ket for coal shrink­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

All that may sound good to you, if you wor­ry about pro­tect­ing the coun­try­side from being treat­ed as one large coal bunker, or you are con­cerned about cli­mate change.

Except it is not all good news. The expect­ed decline in the use of coal for pow­er gen­er­a­tion pur­pos­es is going to take years to achieve. In the mean­time, we may be start­ing to wit­ness an increase in plan­ning appli­ca­tions for new open­cast mines across the UK, as Coal Oper­a­tors realise that they must try to cash in on the invest­ments they have already made before the coal mar­ket dries up.

This month LAON can report, in its 7th Review of Open­cast Sites avail­able here:

https://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/3309

 that two new pro­pos­als have been made recent­ly, one for a new 10m tonne site called Cauld­hall, near Rosewell in Mid­loth­i­an (iron­i­cal­ly by Scot­tish Coal) and the oth­er at the Dean­field site for 1.18m tonnes at Sharleston near Wake­field, where UK Coal, anoth­er coal com­pa­ny which near­ly went into admin­is­tra­tion this year, intends to sur­face mine. As a con­se­quence, The Stop Open­cast in Sharl­ston (SOS) group has joined the Net­work

That is not the only bad news about the sur­face min­ing of coal in Eng­land. The Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing, through the Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill (Clause 21), to make it eas­i­er to dig up coal in Eng­land, just when they are plan­ning to reduce the role coal plays in pro­duc­ing elec­tric­i­ty through the Ener­gy Bill. This clause of the Bill is like­ly to be debat­ed by the Growth and Infra­struc­ture Pub­lic Bill Com­mit­tee, along with our evi­dence, on Tues­day 4th Decem­ber.

LAON’s con­cern about these pol­i­cy changes is this. Giv­en the eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties that the UK Coal Indus­try finds itself in, is this the right time to be chang­ing the plan­ning sys­tem to make it eas­i­er for Coal Oper­a­tors to get per­mis­sion for new open­cast mines? This is increas­ing the risk that many more open­cast sites are left ‘moth­balled’ and pock-mark­ing our coun­try-side if UK Coal Pro­duc­ers find that they are increas­ing­ly priced out of their own declin­ing domes­tic mar­ket. In our view, this is not the time to relax plan­ning con­trols at all for new sur­face mines in Eng­land

We are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment realis­es the incon­sis­ten­cies in its cur­rent pol­i­cy pro­pos­als and whilst it con­tin­ues with its plans to decar­bonise the gen­er­at­ing sec­tor, it revis­es its plans and not allow any plans to sur­face mine coal in Eng­land to be treat­ed as a Major Infra­struc­ture Project.

A ref­er­enced ver­sion of this press release is avail­able by con­tact­ing LAON at the email address below.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It func­tions as a medi­um through which to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land (Just Say No to Lig­nite), Scot­land (Coal Action Scot­land), Wales (Green Val­leys Alliance, The Merthyr Tyd­fil Anti Open­cast Cam­paign), Eng­land, (Coal Action Net­work), Northum­ber­land, (Whit­ton­stall Action Group, Hal­ton Lea Gate Res­i­dents)) Co Durham (Pont Val­ley Net­work), Leeds, Sheffield (Cow­ley Res­i­dents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skel­mansthor­pe Action Group)  Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm Open­cast Oppo­si­tion), Der­byshire (West Hal­lum Envi­ron­ment Group, Smal­l­ey Action Group and Hill­top Action Group) , Leices­ter­shire (Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group), Wake­field (Stop Open­cast in Sharl­ston) and Wal­sall (Alumwell Action Group).

Con­tact­ing LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordi­na­tor, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

WAKE UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNTRYSIDE FROM NEW PLANNING LEGISLATION

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

PR 2012 ‑15                                                                           28/1/12

Does a com­pa­ny want to dig a big hole near you? Is it inter­est­ed in try­ing to extract sand, clay. grav­el, stone or coal? If it is, and the site is going to be more than 100 hectares, then why not sug­gest to the own­er that they can side­step going to the Local Author­i­ty and have the plan­ning appli­ca­tion con­sid­ered by a new ‘fast- track’ method. Label it a ‘Nation­al­ly Sig­nif­i­cant Infra­struc­ture Project’ and it can then be decid­ed on, in a year, by a  Plan­ning Inspec­tor who, unlike local peo­ple and local­ly elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, will not know the site, will not be affect­ed and will not know you.

Far- fetched ideas?  Unfor­tu­nate­ly not. These ideas are part of the pro­pos­als in the Government’s Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill now before Par­lia­ment. It will enable sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion to be passed that, in its present form , will allow an appli­cant to by-pass the local demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion mak­ing process and have their appli­ca­tion treat­ed as a Major Infra­struc­ture Project. The Gov­ern­ment have ini­ti­at­ed a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion process on the pro­pos­al enti­tled  ‘Nation­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant infra­struc­ture plan­ning: extend­ing the regime to busi­ness and com­mer­cial projects: con­sul­ta­tion’ which can be down­loaded from here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nationally-significant-infrastructure-planning-extending-the-regime-to-business-and-commercial-projects

The Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has analysed what the effect would be if the leg­is­la­tion was in place now on open­cast mine pro­pos­als. There are 11 pos­si­ble or actu­al pro­pos­als for open­cast mines in Eng­land cur­rent­ly. Under these pro­pos­als, deci­sions about the four largest could be tak­en out of the hands of the Local Author­i­ty and giv­en to a sin­gle unelect­ed per­son to decide. Our Brief­ing Note “ Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill: Pro­posed 100 Hectare Thresh­old” pub­lished along with this Press Release @

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/11/503382.html

 out­lines fur­ther why The Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work argues against this pro­pos­al and urges oth­er com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups to urgent­ly study these pro­pos­als and voice their objec­tions.

All respons­es, on forms pro­vid­ed in the con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment, have to be in by 7/1/13.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It func­tions as a medi­um through which to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land (Just Say No to Lig­nite), Scot­land (Coal Action Scot­land), Wales (Green Val­leys Alliance, The Merthyr Tyd­fil Anti Open­cast Cam­paign), Eng­land, (Coal Action Net­work), Northum­ber­land, (Whit­ton­stall Action Group, Hal­ton Lea Gate Res­i­dents)) Co Durham (Pont Val­ley Net­work), Leeds, Sheffield (Cow­ley Res­i­dents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skel­mansthor­pe Action Group)  Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm Open­cast Oppo­si­tion), Der­byshire (West Hal­lum Envi­ron­ment Group, Smal­l­ey Action Group and Hill­top Action Group) , Leices­ter­shire (Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group) and Wal­sall (Alumwell Action Group).

Con­tact­ing LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordi­na­tor, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

 

 

Campaigners from No Dash for Gas abseil 90m down power station chimney to end 7 day occupation

This morn­ing the last two cam­paign­ers from No Dash for Gas abseiled down the side of one of the chim­neys they have been occu­py­ing at EDF’s West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion for the past 7 days to end the most auda­cious and high pro­file direct action in recent years. Four cam­paign­ers had left yes­ter­day, all have hand­ed them­selves in to the police.

Total occu­pa­tion time: 7 days
Total CO2 saved: 19117 tonnes

The sev­en day protest saw 16 activists occu­py the flues of two of the chim­neys at the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. Whilst up there, they rigged a rope between the two chim­neys and peo­ple were able to trav­el across. The group, No Dash for Gas, were there to stop emis­sions, halt con­struc­tion of the pow­er sta­tion and high­light the sense­less­ness of the gov­ern­men­t’s pro­posed ‘dash for gas’ in the upcom­ing Ener­gy Bill. In a move that the gov­ern­men­t’s own Select Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change has said might be ille­gal, the gov­ern­ment wants to build up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions. This would lock us into rely­ing on fos­sil fuels for anoth­er 30 years, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to hit emis­sions reduc­tions tar­gets, and ensur­ing house­hold ener­gy bills con­tin­ue to rise.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the cam­paign­ers and the last per­son com­ing down from the chim­ney, said:
 

“This was the first time activists have man­aged to suc­cess­ful­ly shut down a pow­er sta­tion, and the longest occu­pa­tion of a pow­er sta­tion the UK has ever seen. We stopped 20,000 tonnes of CO2 being emit­ted, pre­vent­ed any con­struc­tion work on the site for a week and got our mes­sage about how reck­less and ridicu­lous, let alone prob­a­bly ille­gal, George Osborne’s pro­posed ‘dash for gas’ is out to thou­sands of peo­ple. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved – but it’s only the start of the bat­tle for our ener­gy future.”

Dur­ing the week-long occu­pa­tion, Ener­gy Min­is­ter John Hayes’ anti-wind­farm out­burst demon­strat­ed that the Coali­tion’s ener­gy pol­i­cy is in utter dis­ar­ray. We also wit­nessed Hur­ri­cane Sandy wreak unprece­dent­ed dam­age in one of the most severe warn­ings of the effects of cli­mate change the world has seen. By shut­ting down West Bur­ton for a week, No Dash for Gas have demon­strat­ed the need to make the tran­si­tion away from a fos­sil-fuel-depen­dent ener­gy infra­struc­ture. Dan­ny Chivers, one of the cam­paign­ers who occu­pied the cen­tral chim­ney, said:

“Hur­ri­cane Sandy demon­strat­ed all too clear­ly that cli­mate change is already seri­ous — and it’s only get­ting more so each month it gets ignored. Com­pa­nies like EDF are get­ting away with mur­der, for the sake of some short-term prof­it. They are burn­ing more and more fos­sil fuels, like gas, when we des­per­ate­ly need a sus­tain­able and fair ener­gy sys­tem. The tech­nol­o­gy to sup­ply our ener­gy needs through renew­able ener­gy sources already exists, but the peo­ple with the pow­er are reck­less­ly and irre­spon­si­bly ignor­ing this.”

Day 7: Update and photos from No Dash for Gas

 

 

No Dash for Gas activists have now pre­vent­ed over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 from being emit­ted, as the chim­ney they are occu­py­ing had to be shut down

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

 

 

No Dash for Gas activists have now pre­vent­ed over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 from being emit­ted, as the chim­ney they are occu­py­ing had to be shut down

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

The Goven­men­t’s dash 4 gas is ille­gal because it will make it impos­si­ble 2 meet legal­ly-bind­ing emis­sions reduc­tions tar­gets under Cli­mate Act

Just 2 activists left occu­py­ing the chim­ney as they head into day 8. Longest-run­ning pow­er sta­tion occu­pa­tion ever!

They’ve had work­ers con­tact­ing them in pri­vate giv­ing their sup­port. Can’t speak open­ly, fear for of jobs

 

Campaigners prevent carbon emissions in longest-ever power station occupation

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

EDF has con­firmed that the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion will remain shut down after more than thir­ty No Dash for Gas cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty and entered the site on Mon­day morn­ing. Six­teen of them are spend­ing their third day at the top of two 300 ft smoke­stacks at the West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire, and last night built new bar­ri­cades out of scaf­fold­ing, lad­ders and wood. They have abseiled down inside one of the chim­neys to set up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. [1] As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­nace the plant is unable to oper­ate.

Because the plant was not yet ful­ly oper­a­tional and not con­nect­ed to the grid, the cam­paign­ers claim they have pre­vent­ed 2371 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions a day by shut­ting down the one work­ing chim­ney. This is equiv­a­lent to the ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. [2] As the human and eco­nom­ic costs of Hur­ri­cane Sandy become clear­er, the need to take action on cli­mate change and avoid many more instances of such extreme weath­er-relat­ed dis­as­ters has nev­er been more press­ing.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, the East Coast of the US has been dev­as­tat­ed by Hur­ri­cane Sandy, we’re see­ing droughts and floods across the world and glob­al tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing. Yet the gov­ern­ment, at the behest of the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies, wants to build 20 new gas pow­er sta­tions. This is inde­fen­si­ble. Gas is expen­sive, high­ly pol­lut­ing and we don’t need it. We should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire has been tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. [3] The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills. This deci­sion is like­ly to be con­firmed when the delayed Ener­gy Bill is pub­lished towards the end of Novem­ber. But the activists echo many sci­en­tists and the government’s own advis­ers in call­ing for an end to plans for a new dash for gas and invest­ment in a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem instead. [4]

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices.[5] Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

The activists have not yet decid­ed when they are going to come down, but have pledged to give the police sev­er­al hours warn­ing, and hand them­selves in. Nev­er­the­less, the police have crit­i­cised them for wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey on an expen­sive police oper­a­tion.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys, said : ‘It’s EDF who are wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. There is no need for such a heavy police pres­ence on the ground and heli­copters in the sky. It’s not like we’re try­ing to escape! We have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the police from the start and assured them this is a respon­si­ble protest, with safe­ty at its heart. We will give them plen­ty of warn­ing when we intend to come down, and will hand our­selves over.’

Find out more at www.nodashforgas.org.uk
Fol­low us on Twit­ter: @nodashforgas
Like us on Face­book: No Dash for Gas

ENDS

Notes to edi­tors:

  1. The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.
  2. Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine plants like this emit 353g of CO2 per kilo­watt hour: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/policy-legislation/emr/2179-eps-impact-assessment-emr-wp.pdf . This plant had been gen­er­at­ing 280 megawatts:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/30/no-dash-for-gas-occupy . 353g per hour for a day is 8.47 kg a day (353 x 24 = 8470g) and 8.47 x 280,000 is 2371 tonnes a day. That’s the same as ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. A dri­ver would have to dri­ve their car non-stop, night and day, for ten and a half years to emit that much…
    http://www.yousustain.com/footprint/howmuchco2?co2=2371+tons
  3. West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay. [i]
  4. The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon bud­gets.” [iii]
  5. Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [iv]

Facts and fig­ures on the dash for gas:

· Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [v]

· He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions reg­u­la­tions. [vi] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning con­sent. [vii]

· Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon bud­gets.”[viii]

· Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter.

· Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix]

· An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x]

· The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi]

[xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

No Dash for Gas 40 hours and counting: Update & Photos

Yes­ter­day more than 20 cli­mate change activists evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. 16 of them have remained in the pow­er sta­tion occu­py­ing two of its chim­neys to pre­vent it from being turned on again. They climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF Energy’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. They’ve now been up there for over 40 hours, they intend to stay there until it is no longer pos­si­ble to remain. They have set up camp with tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. They have also instal­let­ed solar pan­els and are build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions.

The group have come togeth­er under the ban­ner ‘No Dash For Gas’, from across the coun­try to take action against the new wave of invest­ment in gas. Prof­it-hun­gry cor­po­ra­tions have been suc­cess­ful in lob­by­ing politi­cians to replace coal with gas as the new back­bone to our high­ly-pol­lut­ing and inse­cure ener­gy infra­struc­ture, whilst doing noth­ing to tack­le cli­mate change or ris­ing ener­gy bills.

For as long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, our ener­gy sys­tem will con­tin­ue to dri­ve us towards cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. We’re here to fight back against an eco­log­i­cal­ly irre­versible deci­sion to con­tin­ue with a fos­sil-fuel pow­ered ener­gy sys­tem despite the fact that renew­able tech­nolo­gies are capa­ble of pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future. The effects of anthro­pogenic cli­mate change have been more wide­spread and more severe this year than any so far on record – the arc­tic melt smashed through all pre­vi­ous records, the drought in the USA has sparked the begin­ning of a world­wide food cri­sis and there has been a marked increase in extreme weath­er events across the globe.

This action is one of many that have tak­en place this year as part of a renewed effort by activists across the UK to take action against cli­mate change and the eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ving it. Dur­ing our time up the chim­ney we want to con­nect with groups and organ­i­sa­tions who share our belief that the time to take rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change is now; and rad­i­cal action stretch­es from find­ing ways for com­mu­ni­ties to adapt and be resilient to cli­mate change, to stand­ing up to the vest­ed eco­nom­ic inter­ests that are pre­vent­ing the tran­si­tion to an eco­log­i­cal­ly viable and more humane soci­ety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants—a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Keep in touch with lat­est devel­op­ments by fol­low­ing us on twit­ter: @nodashforgas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protest camp on top of chim­ney

 

 

 

No Dash For Gas: Campaigners shut down UK’s newest gas plant

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

The new ‘dash for gas’ will leave us depen­dent on a high­ly pol­lut­ing and increas­ing­ly expen­sive fos­sil fuel for decades to come. It would make even our mod­est car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets impos­si­ble to hit, and cause house­hold ener­gy bills to soar even fur­ther. While ener­gy com­pa­nies prof­it, our chances of a secure and sus­tain­able future are slip­ping away.

This action is there­fore in defence of the glob­al com­mons, which are under sus­tained attack by pol­lut­ing fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies. We are here to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er and the rush to fur­ther ingrain an ener­gy sys­tem that puts short term prof­its of the few, above the col­lec­tive needs of the many.

Replac­ing our out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture with clean alter­na­tives will gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs. The tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wrest pow­er from a car­tel of ener­gy com­pa­nies, and back into the hands of com­mu­ni­ties.   The dash for gas makes no sense for any­one except the big ener­gy com­pa­nies. We need a clean­er, more resilient and eco­nom­i­cal­ly just ener­gy sys­tem — and we’re here to fight for it. This is the new bat­tle­ground for our ener­gy future.

Climbers abseil down inside of chim­neys and halt con­struc­tion

 

This morn­ing, more than twen­ty cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. They have climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and have abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. They are now set­ting up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­naces the plant is unable to oper­ate.

The occu­pa­tion fires the start­ing gun on a huge nation­wide bat­tle over Britain’s ener­gy future, with activists deter­mined to stop gov­ern­ment plans for a new dash for gas. They are call­ing instead for a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem.

The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul.

The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing the chim­ney. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, peo­ple are get­ting flood­ed out of their homes, we’re see­ing droughts across the world but the ener­gy com­pa­nies are mak­ing a killing. We’re here because we want an elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem that doesn’t cause our world to warm and our bills to rise ever high­er. Gas is expen­sive and high­ly pol­lut­ing, but if the Gov­ern­ment gets its way we’ll be reliant on it for decades. Instead we should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices. Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

Ewa Jasiewicz is on top of one of the chim­neys. She said:

“A new dash for gas will leave the UK utter­ly reliant on this dirty expen­sive fuel for decades to come. Our ener­gy sys­tem is being run by a car­tel of cor­po­ra­tions that has this gov­ern­ment in its pock­et. As long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, we will have an ener­gy sys­tem that ignores the needs of those suf­fer­ing most from cli­mate change and ris­ing ener­gy bills. With a quar­ter of the UK’s out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture need­ing to be replaced, we have a once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in renew­ables that could gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs, rad­i­cal­ly cut emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide and sta­bilise ener­gy bills. Clean green tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.”

Notes to edi­tors: · West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. · It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. · When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay.[i] · The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. · The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon budgets.”[iii] · Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [iv] · He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions regulations.[v] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning consent.[vi] · Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon budgets.”[vii] · Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [viii] · Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter. · Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix] · An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x] · The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi] [i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2012/jun/21/world-carbon-emissions-league-table-country [ii] http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/7980-TSO%20Book%20Chap%205.pdf and http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc7ad3ee-fd8d-11e1-8e36-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27O6cJ1io [iii] http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/EMR%20letter%20-%20September%2012.pdf [iv] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/28/gas-fired-power-stations-uk?INTCMP=SRCH [v] http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_025/pn12_025.aspx [vi] http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/energy-security/3425-statutory-security-of-supply-report-2011.pdf [vii] http://downloads.theccc.org.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/Letters/EdwardDaveyMP_Letter270312.pdf [viii] http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/RetMkts/rmr/smr/Documents1/SMR%20update%2028–03-12.pdf [ix] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/30/germany-renewable-energy-revolution [x] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/wind-shale-gas-icm-poll [xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

BBC Investigates Opencast Mining

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

A small vil­lage, of just 75 house­holds, is all that may stand between pre­serv­ing large sec­tions of the Eng­lish coun­try­side and the expressed desire of the UK Min­er­al Extrac­tion Indus­try to see more per­mis­sions giv­en to exploit­ing England’s min­er­al resources in areas that are more envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive and / or are clos­er to where peo­ple live.

The unfor­tu­nate vil­lage is Hal­ton Lea Gate, locat­ed on the Cum­bria / Northum­ber­land bor­der and near an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty. A team from the BBC’s Coun­r­ty­file pro­gramme was film­ing there recent­ly to inves­ti­gate why this spot now finds itself on the front line of a nation­al plan­ning con­tro­ver­sy.

 In ear­ly August, after a Pub­lic Inquiry into an Appeal to grant per­mis­sion for an Open­cast Mine, the Inspec­tor found in favour of the Appli­cant. The sting in the tale, for all oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Eng­land, is the rea­son­ing giv­en by the Inspec­tor to allow the Appeal. His rea­son­ing set a new case law prece­dent, it is argued, which affects all future min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions in Eng­land.

 What the Appli­cant has to repli­cate in the future, is the argu­ment used here: that there is a nation­al need for the min­er­al in ques­tion, in this case coal. If they can per­suade the Plan­ning Author­i­ty (or the Inspec­tor, if the Appli­ca­tion has gone to an Appeal) that this is the case, then ‘great weight’ has to be attached to this claim. So much weight it seems, that this fac­tor alone may over­ride all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.  (1)

This sit­u­a­tion has arisen as a con­se­quence of the Gov­ern­ment imple­ment­ing the new Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work. In the time lead­ing up to the 2010 elec­tion, lob­by­ing organ­i­sa­tions such as Coal­pro and the CBI lob­bied long and hard for a relax­ation of the plan­ning rules for min­er­al extrac­tion. (2) It seems, from this exam­ple, the first Pub­lic Inquiry for min­er­al extrac­tion to be held under the new rules, that their efforts have been reward­ed. The advice of the Inspec­tor has now gone to the Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment to be con­firmed or reject­ed by a Min­is­ter.

The BBC came to inves­ti­gate the issue and explore why local peo­ple have tak­en on the task of rais­ing £40,000 so that they can mount a Judi­cial Review over the deci­sion. If local peo­ple are suc­cess­ful in rais­ing the mon­ey and mount­ing a suc­cess­ful action, they may have pre­vent­ed the flood­gates from open­ing and saved Eng­land from expe­ri­enc­ing a rash of min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions for devel­op­ing swathes of the coun­try­side. This is now a Pub­lic Appeal, and dona­tions can be made payable to The North Pen­nines Pro­tec­tion Group, who have been one of the local groups who have opposed this Appli­ca­tion

An e peti­tion to the Gov­ern­ment has been start­ed about this plan­ning deci­sion and its impli­ca­tion for sim­i­lar plan­ning deci­sions else­where which can be signed by fol­low­ing this link:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36985

Steve Leary for the Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work com­ment­ed

“ LAON was con­tact­ed by the BBC in the lead up to film­ing for the Coun­try­side pro­gramme. We are delight­ed to be able to coop­er­ate in the mak­ing of the pro­gramme and show why we argue that this is an issue of nation­al impor­tance which will affect oth­er com­mu­ni­ties up and down the Coun­try if the deci­sion is not changed.

We know of five oth­er open­cast mine appli­ca­tions, near Smal­ly in Der­byshire (George Farm) , Kirklees, Sth. York­shire (Dearne Lea), Trow­el in Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm) , Whit­ton­stall in Northum­ber­land ( Hood­sclose) and Gateshead  (Birk­lands) that will be affect­ed by this deci­sion if it stands.

In addi­tion, we are aware of three oth­er sites where a poten­tial appli­cant is mak­ing the final deci­sion to pro­ceed with a full appli­ca­tion in Gateshead,   Mar­ley Hill Recla­ma­tion) , Der­byshire ( Hill Top Project near Clay Cross) and Northum­ber­land  (Fer­neybeds near Wid­dring­ton Sta­tion, Northum­ber­land) which might also be affect­ed.

The issue here though, we believe, goes way beyond open­cast min­ing. It’s about relax­ing the rules around all forms of min­er­al extrac­tion from pits for sand, grav­el and clay to quar­ries for gran­ite and lime­stone to open­cast mines for coal. This is what the indus­try lob­bied for and now, it seems, the Gov­ern­ment has deliv­ered, if it upholds the Inspector’s rec­om­men­da­tion to approve the Appli­ca­tion and the Judi­cial Review fails. We there­fore urge peo­ple every­where, who cher­ish and love our coun­try­side, to sup­port both the peti­tion and the pub­lic appeal for mon­ey to take this case to a Judi­cial Review.”

The Coun­r­ty­file edi­tion of the pro­gramme is to be broad­cast on Sun­day 30th Sep­tem­ber 2012. It will include a 12 minute sec­tion on the Hal­ton Lea Gate issue.

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Ref­er­ences

1)   For more infor­ma­tion on the sig­nif­i­cance of this deci­sion as far as open­cast mine appli­ca­tions are con­cerned see  LAON PR7 here

http://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/2754

2)   Evi­dence about the lob­by­ing to relax these plan­ning rules can be found here.

Brief­ing Note E2 “Ener­gy Pol­i­cy and the Pro­posed Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work,” MOPG 2011  @

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-briefing-notes-series.html

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ABOUT LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It  func­tions as a medi­um through to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions through which any per­son / group can com­mu­ni­cate ideas, infor­ma­tion, requests for infor­ma­tion and pos­si­bly con­cert­ed actions if we find a tar­get. In addi­tion feel free to invite any oth­er per­son / group who oppose open­cast min­ing appli­ca­tions, to join the net­work so that it grows. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, Northum­ber­land, Co Durham, Leeds, Kirklees Not­ting­hamshire, Der­byshire, Leices­ter­shire and Wal­sall.

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ https://twitter.com/Seftonchase