People Unite in Opposition to Scottish Coal’s Open Cast Plans in Midlothian

22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

Growing Resistance22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

The protest start­ed in the Vil­lage Hall, with peo­ple gath­er­ing for a speech and wel­come by CAAOC Chair­per­son Dougie McKen­zie. The group then marched through the vil­lage the short dis­tance to the pro­posed open cast site, set in Mid­loth­i­an’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side, and through the right of way to the cen­tre of the open cast area. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers explained the extent of the bound­aries of the site and the dev­as­ta­tion that would be caused by it.

Fiona Reed, of Coal Action Scot­land, speak­ing to the con­gre­gat­ed crowd, said: “We’ve come here today to con­tin­ue our long term com­mit­ment to sup­port and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with this com­mu­ni­ty and their strug­gle against open cast coal. Across Scot­land com­mu­ni­ties are blight­ed by com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal, whether its the health impacts, eco­nom­ic degra­da­tion or the destruc­tion of their local envi­ron­ment they suf­fer. Togeth­er we are stronger!”

Dougie McKen­zie, chair of the cam­paign­ing group, Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast (CAAOC), said, “We are delight­ed that Coal Action Scot­land is sup­port­ing our cam­paign. Local peo­ple have real con­cerns not only about the impact this mine will have on local busi­ness­es, but also on our safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of our chil­dren — the area sur­round­ing the vil­lage of Cous­land is rid­dled with old lime­stone mine work­ings, and we have seri­ous con­cerns about the impact blast­ing will have on the already unsta­ble ground. Already this year we believe there have been 2 land col­laps­es into old mine work­ings in the fields around Air­field, and a few years pre­vi­ous­ly a 15-year old boy nar­row­ly escaped death when the ground in the local play­ing field col­lapsed beneath him .”

“We hope this rur­al protest march will raise aware­ness of our cam­paign and will encour­age more peo­ple to object to Scot­tish Coal’s appli­ca­tion. We sus­pect that there will be many peo­ple in Edin­burgh unaware of this pro­posed blot on the beau­ti­ful land­scape so close to the city.”