Category: North East England

North East Eng­land

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

 

 

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.

———————————————————————————-

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

——————————————————————-

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

Twyford Down anti-road protests gathering, September

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There will be a camp run along the same lines as 20 years ago (bring what you expect to find… water butts, tents, food, etc).  That said, there will be some domes and the @ teapot are going to be doing cater­ing (Sat din­ner and Sun break­fast) — hur­rah!  Camp loca­tion to be on top of St Cather­ine’s Hill, near Win­ches­ter.

There will also be a protest / pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty about this cur­rent Gov­ern­men­t’s mania of road­build­ing. 

 Please spread this amongst your con­tacts who you think may be inter­estd.  There is a Face­book page if you do such things called Twen­ty Years Since Twyford: http://www.facebook.com/events/344190508996315/

More details and fly­er down­load­able at http://bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/roads/100912-twyford-20

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update — programme, directions, website and more

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

The Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place each year to pro­vide a space in which the rad­i­cal ecol­o­gy move­ment can share skills and plan for future cam­paigns and actions.

Dis­cus­sions around the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing in inner cities, the state of the anar­chist move­ment and patri­archy in activism.

Skill shares includ­ing wom­en’s self-defence, research­ing cor­po­ra­tions and nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­paign round ups from Frack Off! Smash Edo and Lud­dites 2000 amongst oth­ers.

If you have work­shops you like to run or dis­cus­sions you’d like to facil­i­tate then email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

Full pro­gramme.

Camp­ing is on a slid­ing scale of £30 to £15, pay what is gen­uine­ly appro­pri­ate.

Food will be from Anar­chist Teapot and meal tick­ets will be £5 a day.

Kids can have sep­a­rate meals if they want for £3 a day.

There will be a cou­ple of kids spaces, and spe­cial work­shops being ran for kids. If you’d like to run any kids work­shops get in touch at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net.

If you want you dog to come along then you’re going to have to email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

And of course there will be enter­tain­ment and a bar open in the evenings.

The camp is ½ mile from the Berring­ton vil­lage, and 1 mile from the larg­er vil­lage of Cross Hous­es.

We encour­age non-cycling campers to use pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble as Cross Hous­es is on a bus route.

BY TRAIN
The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury. You can then get the bus to Cross Hous­es (see below). If com­ing from a long dis­tance it can some­times be cheap­er to get a tick­et to a large sta­tion such as Birm­ing­ham, Wolver­hamp­ton, Man­ches­ter or Crewe and then a sep­a­rate tick­et on to Shrews­bury. Check nation­al rail for train times and prices. If com­ing from the Lon­don direc­tion, it’s gen­er­al­ly cheap­er to buy a Super Off­peak Return, spec­i­fy­ing “Lon­don Mid­land & Arri­va only”.

BY BIKE
See here for direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.

BY BUS
When you arrive at Shrews­bury train sta­tion, ask some­one to point you to the bus sta­tion. It’s only a few min­utes walk from the train sta­tion. The bus ser­vice that runs from town to with­in a mile of Crabap­ple is the 436 towards Bridg­north. It runs every hour from 7.40am to 5.40pm with a “late” one at 7.40pm. The jour­ney to Cross Hous­es is approx 15 mins. You will need to press the stop but­ton when you see the sign for Cross Hous­es. Some of the ser­vices on this route are low-floor acces­si­ble bus­es. Please note that the last bus leaves Shrews­bury at 7.40pm, Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and there are no Sun­day bus ser­vices. For the bus timetable see here http://shropshire.gov.uk/bustimes/timetable.jsc?timetable=436mfi0412.
The camp itself is about 1 mile from the bus stop. From the bus stop at Cross Hous­es, walk back towards Shrews­bury past the petrol sta­tion (on your right) and take the first left turn signed “Berring­ton”. After about ½ mile, the road forks at the edge of the vil­lage. Take the right turn sign­post­ed “Bet­ton Abbots” and we’re about ¼ mile up the road on the right.
If you intend to come by bus but need help get­ting to and from the bus stop, you can arrange a pick up with us: details will be avail­able near­er the time.

BY TAXI
There is also a taxi rank just out­side Shrews­bury train sta­tion. Acces­si­ble taxis can be got from here.- but it is MUCH cheap­er to book a cab from a local com­pa­ny – Comet Cabs 01743 344444, or Vin­cent Cabs 01743 367777. Vin­cents also have a book­ing office just across the road from the sta­tion, which is handy if you don’t have a phone to book a cab in advance.

USEFUL LINKS
See here direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.
See a map of where the site is here
See the bus timetable
Direc­tions from places oth­er than Shrews­bury

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Col­lec­tive
earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

http://earthfirstgathering.weebly.com

Take the Flour Back! anti-GM wheat action 27 May — final details

‘Take the Flour Back’ will be a nice day out in the coun­try, with pic­nics, music from Seize the Day and a decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion. It’s for any­one who feels able to pub­li­cal­ly help remove this threat and those who want to show their sup­port for them.

What to bring, action you should take before the 27th May, trans­port info and more info on the web­site — http://taketheflourback.org/

How to get there, OS map and pho­to of the new fence

OCCUPY OIL — THE SEQUEL

Tak­ing place WORLDWIDE on Tues­day 22nd May 2012

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gbXnBXoTzI

#Occu­py­Oil the Sequel: The road to SHELL is paved with bad inten­tions…

Tak­ing place WORLDWIDE on Tues­day 22nd May 2012

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gbXnBXoTzI

#Occu­py­Oil the Sequel: The road to SHELL is paved with bad inten­tions…

BLOODY MONEY: Tar Sands, Ross­port, Niger Delta

On the 8th of Feb this year Occu­py Oil held it first day of mass action.

Shell Sta­tions across the UK and indeed fur­ther afield were block­ad­ed or pick­et­ed. We are back and on the 22nd of May 2012 we are hold­ing Occu­py Oil the Sequel, Roy­al Dutch Shell will be hold­ing their AGM in The Hague with an audio-visu­al link to a satel­lite meet­ing place in Lon­don.

We are call­ing on all occu­piers, groups and indi­vid­u­als to come togeth­er and send a clear mes­sage to Shell.

NIGER DELTA

Shell Oil in the Niger Delta have done untold destruc­tion, the oil giant’s 2008 spills have wrecked liveli­hoods of 69,000 peo­ple and will take 30 years to clean up.

Guardian Arti­cle from 2011: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/10/shell-nigerian-oil-spills-amnesty

ROSSPORT, CO MAYO, IRELAND

The Oil giant con­tin­ues to destroy the com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, Co Mayo Ire­land. Read more about the Shell to Sea cam­paign at www.shelltosea.com

TAR SANDS, CANADA

Roy­al Dutch Shell is one of the largest play­ers in tar sands, pro­duc­ing approx­i­mate­ly 276 000 bar­rels per day or rough­ly 20% of total exports from Alber­ta. Shell has put forth appli­ca­tions to expand its capac­i­ty through new mines and in situ projects, to a pro­ject­ed 770 000 bar­rel per day capac­i­ty. How­ev­er, strong com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to Shell has dam­aged their rep­u­ta­tion with both share­hold­ers and the pub­lic. Indeed, Shell has been named in five law­suits relat­ed to tar sands devel­op­ments and has faced share­hold­er res­o­lu­tions demand­ing greater clar­i­ty over the risk of tar sands invest­ments.

UK Tar Sands Net­work: www.no-tar-sands.org

It’s time to make a stand. On 22nd of May 2012 we will occu­py petrol sta­tions across the GLOBE. We call on activists to organ­ise your­selves into affin­i­ty groups and join this action world-wide. Make ban­ners, get sound sys­tems and pick tar­gets. As the date approach­es we can co-ordi­nate actions for max­i­mum impact. Let’s send anoth­er shot in our war against the glob­al elites.

E‑MAIL: info@occupyoil.co.uk
TWITTER: @OccupyOil, hash­tag #Occu­py­Oil
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/events/230582443683609
WEB: www.occupyoil.co.uk

Victory Against UK Coal

The Pont Val­ley Net­work and Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil have suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed UK Coal min­ing half a mil­lion tonnes of Coal from Bradley when UK Coal appealed the deci­sion made last year.

The Pont Val­ley Net­work and Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil have suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed UK Coal min­ing half a mil­lion tonnes of Coal from Bradley when UK Coal appealed the deci­sion made last year.

The inspec­tors report was pub­lished on Thurs­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary which rejects the appeal, by UK Coal. Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil unan­i­mous­ly reject­ed the appli­ca­tion a year ago. The appeal took three weeks and end­ed in Novem­ber last year. There were excel­lent con­tri­bu­tions from the coun­cil’s speak­ers and a large num­ber of peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty.


The inspec­tor wrote,

155 … [T]here is a strong and unequiv­o­cal con­clu­sion that the win­ning
of coal by sur­face work­ing at Bradley would have a mate­r­i­al and detri­men­tal
effect on the set­tled envi­ron­ment of the Pont Val­ley and the wider Der­went
Val­ley.’

‘159. The com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits are not suf­fi­cient to out­weigh the harm and, in the
case where this accords with the local view, this must car­ry extra weight…In a nut­shell, approach­ing a 15-year peri­od to achieve what UK Coal con­tend would be equiv­a­lent sta­tus, would
deliv­er a mere 3‑days nation­al coal sup­ply. This does not seem to be a fair
bal­ance of harm to need, where no nation­al pol­i­cy need is iden­ti­fied.’

It was felt that if this appli­ca­tion were to have been suc­cess­ful then there would have been a con­tin­u­ous cycle of exten­sions and fur­ther mines sought in the area. The area con­tains impor­tant ecosys­tems and is well used by local peo­ple, includ­ing those study­ing his­toric min­ing meth­ods. Local young peo­ple added to the debate, point­ing out that this coal would pro­vide the UK grid with 3 days worth of coal which could be obtained from sus­tain­able sources or proved unnec­es­sary by ener­gy effi­cien­cy. A local farmer showed how areas which were open cast were seri­ous­ly deplet­ed, as the soil ecosys­tems were destroyed, when com­pared to areas which have not been mined. The Coal Action Net­work also con­tributed to the voic­es against the mine with expe­ri­ences of how coal com­pa­nies real­ly act once min­ing has been approved. The Pont Val­ley Net­work and local peo­ple were suc­cess­ful in prov­ing that the val­ley has far more to offer, to locals and tourists alike, as it is rather than the ‘restora­tion’ offered by UK Coal.

Well done to those who fought this case.

The arti­cle about the orig­i­nal rejec­tion of the mine by Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil can be seen at http://northern-indymedia.org/articles/1389

Latest Updates from Protect the Wilderness & Reclaim the Fields

The Pro­tect the Wilder­ness cam­paign attend­ed a court hear­ing on Mon­day 5th brought by Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil. This morn­ing, the Judge gave pos­ses­sion to the coun­cil. An evic­tion is very like­ly in the imme­di­ate days.

The Pro­tect the Wilder­ness cam­paign attend­ed a court hear­ing on Mon­day 5th brought by Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil. This morn­ing, the Judge gave pos­ses­sion to the coun­cil. An evic­tion is very like­ly in the imme­di­ate days.

How­ev­er Pro­tect the Wilder­ness would like to con­firm that the Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing hap­pen­ing this week will still be going ahead with a whole three days of work­shops, activ­i­ties and actions as pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised.

For any­one attend­ing:

    *You will be fed, warm, com­fort­able & inspired!
    *You will be able to camp safe­ly in the for­est, please bring a tent & bed­ding if pos­si­ble oth­er­wise there is a large com­mu­nal yurt pro­vid­ed with bed­ding & blan­kets avail­able
    *There will be enough food for every­one
    *There will be a fire-pit & warm spaces to be

And final­ly, you will be free to choose your involve­ment with the evic­tion & any sol­i­dar­i­ty need­ed with the Wilder­ness Cen­tre. There are safe spaces as well as oppor­tu­ni­ties to become involved in defend­ing the space — it is com­plete­ly your choice! This is a great chance to learn about your rights and see the results of our work here at the wilder­ness cen­tre.

So please join Pro­tect the Wilder­ness & Reclaim the Fields in cel­e­brat­ing our shared strug­gles for access­ing land to grow food for our com­mu­ni­ties & to live land-based lives.

As a reminder, here is a taster of what will be hap­pen­ing the next few days:

     *Intro­duc­tions to land rights, Reclaim the Fields UK & Euro­pean con­stel­la­tions, Seed Sov­er­eign­ty, WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
    *Work­shops includ­ing com­post­ing gen­der, occu­py­ing land, pro­tect­ing bee pop­u­la­tions, food sov­er­eign­ty and more.
    *Skill­shares, guer­ril­la gar­den­ing, music & feast­ing!

For more infor­ma­tion about the gath­er­ing please see:
http://www.reclaimthefields.org.uk/spring-gathering-2012/

More info about the Wilder­ness Cen­tre: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064

Who to con­tact if need­ed: 07811 726 372

Direc­tions: Bus/train to Glouces­ter then get the 24/24a to Mitcheldean (takes about 30 mins) get off when you see the church (near the hair­dressers) and ask some­one for direc­tions or notice oth­er RTFers. Oth­er­wise call the num­ber above & you will be col­lect­ed.

Resis­tance is Fer­tile!