Leave it in the Ground: open-cast coal mass trespass, 26th May — poster to download added

A new open-cast coal mine site is about to get under­way in beau­ti­ful Der­byshire, unless we stop it now.

Lodge House site, which is east of the vil­lage of Smal­l­ey and spans either side of Bell Lane, is one of sev­en that UK Coal is to open-cast.

open CastA new open-cast coal mine site is about to get under­way in beau­ti­ful Der­byshire, unless we stop it now.

Lodge House site, which is east of the vil­lage of Smal­l­ey and spans either side of Bell Lane, is one of sev­en that UK Coal is to open-cast.

The area is about to be dev­as­tat­ed, despite objec­tions from local coun­cils, res­i­dents and local envi­ron­men­tal groups, but the Sec­re­tary of State grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in 2007.

The 122 hectare site will have one mil­lion tonnes of coal ripped out over five years and ‘returned back to its nat­ur­al state’ accord­ing to UK Coal, how­ev­er res­i­dents fear there may be more to the plot, as they were exclud­ed from parts of the plan­ning meet­ing on grounds of com­mer­cial con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

UK Coal are one of those com­pa­nies that looks to max­imise their prof­its by rap­ing the land and prof­it­ing from it any way they can — after coal extrac­tion, they return the area to busi­ness parks, hous­ing and indus­tri­al estates. In some cas­es they return it to farm­land and charge the farm­ers rent, or on low-grade land grow ener­gy crops accord­ing to their web­site. They are even into wind­pow­er, but as yet have still not erect­ed a tur­bine.

Coal is not clean ener­gy, and with the new onslaught of pro­posed pow­er sta­tions, UK Coal are look­ing to cash in on cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion unless we stop them.

The area is rich with wildlife and backs onto Ship­ley Coun­try Park; some hous­es, (the sort of place you dream of liv­ing in) have been shut­tered up and items like toys, dog ken­nels and oth­er per­son­al bits remain, look­ing like some­thing from a hur­ried evac­u­a­tion from a war zone. UK Coal has stat­ed that the site will be returned to farm land, but they are able to expand beyond the 122 hectares with­out need­ing fur­ther per­mis­sion.

To com­bat open-cast min­ing, a new action group “Leave it in the Ground” has formed, sup­port­ed by Earth First! with an invite to a Pic­nic in the Park on 26th May for a mass tres­pass to see it before the destruc­tion starts, meet the locals and have fun. So come and Dis­cov­er Der­byshire!

Meet at the Vis­i­tors Cen­tre, Ship­ley Coun­try Park, Slack Lane, Heanor DE75 7GX at 12 noon on the 26th May.

For more info phone 07852 460871 or email derby@earthfirst.org.uk

Blog http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com
Web­site http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/

Down­load the poster to put up on notice­boards & bring your friends