Resistance To Imminent Coal Mining In Pont Valley, County Durham

Time is run­ning out for Banks Group to build an access road to the site of it planned open­cast coal mine in Coun­ty Durham, before their plan­ning per­mis­sion expires on 3rd June. Local peo­ple and their sup­port­ers have left to stop the first spade going into the ground on 71 hectares of grass­land, fields and woods in the Pont Val­ley, Co Durham. Under plan­ning per­mis­sion, the min­ing com­pa­ny Banks Group has to start work by 3 June or their licence to start min­ing the site will expire.

The site is in the Pont Val­ley off the A692 between the vil­lages of Leadgate and Dip­ton, where the Banks Group plans to extract around 500,000 tonnes of coal over two to three years. A camp was set­up on 2nd March at the entrance to the pro­posed mine. Sev­er­al Local Groups, the Coal Action Net­work and cam­paingers from Ham­bach For­est have been instru­men­tal in get­ting the camp going. Between 19th and 21st April, the camp was evict­ed by bailiffs and sev­en cam­paign­ers were arrest­ed, but a new camp has been re-estab­lished at a new loca­tion. All are invit­ed to come and stay and pro­tect the beau­ti­ful Pont Val­ley. There is local bus con­nec­tions to Dip­ton from Durham and New Cas­tle.

There are plans for a series of pub­lic demon­stra­tions in the days lead­ing up to the dead­line, includ­ing:

• Open Mic Not Open­cast! SAVE Pont Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Demo (Face­book) Sat 19th May 7am-1pm — music and dance, bring your friends and your instru­ments
• Wildlife Walk: SAVE Pont Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Demo (Face­book) Sat 26th May 7am-1pm — Nat­u­ral­ists and nature themed activ­i­ties includ­ing a walk on the threat­ened site, bring your friends
• Vic­to­ry Par­ty! SAVE Pont Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Demo (Face­book) Sat 2nd Jun 7am-1pm — Par­ty, bring par­ty food, par­ty dec­o­ra­tions and get ready to par­ty! Bring your friends

For over thir­ty years, UK Coal and now Banks Group have want­ed to start an open cast coal mine in the Pont Val­ley, between Dip­ton and Leadgate, at a site known as ‘Bradley’, in Coun­ty Durham. The com­mu­ni­ty won 3 high court bat­tles against UK Coal. But they lost on the fourth despite pre­sent­ing even stronger evi­dence than the pre­vi­ous 3. UK coal got the per­mit, but they were bank­rupt and they liq­ui­dat­ed in 2015. Every­one thought that was the end of it and there would be no mine. This Jan­u­ary, Banks Group announced they’d bought the land and the per­mit off UK Coal and intend to work the mine.

If you would like to put an event any­where in UK or in oth­er parts of Europe to spread the word of the strug­gle please get in touch with: protectpontvalley@gmail.com

Also see:

• Pont Val­ley: New Camp, Block­ades and Events
• UK: Open­cast Mine Pro­test­ers Dig In Ahead of Dead­line
• Durham (UK): Vio­lence at protest camp evic­tion
• Dis­patch­es from the coal­face: ‘Pro­tect­ing the land, my home’
• Fri­day 3.2.2018 New Anti-Coal Camp set up in Pont Val­ley, Eng­land