My first ever blog post was called "Down the Woods" It was about the forest sell off (that was subsequently abandoned) and an opencast planning application (that was subsequntly refused) I claim no credit for either postive outcome. but a happy coincidence nontheless.
UK Coal are back, and they want to opencast the Pont valley, A planning application to opencast was refused a few months ago thanks to the work of councillors and local activists. UK Coal have appealed the decision and are trying to get the decision to refuse planning overturned.
They will say that we [the activists] are NIMBYs. Well the pont valley is my backyard and I don't want an opencast coal mine in it so yes I am a NIMBY but I don't want an opencast coal mine in your backyard either, or in anyone else's for that matter - there are other ways to generate electricity there are other energy resources and if it comes to it, and carbon capture takes off and I think it might just be burying the problem - then there are other ways of extracting it.
They will say that the opencast will not adversely effect the environment, What an absolute load of utter rubbish. The layers of soil and rock have taken millions of years to form, they will be dumped back in no pariticular order when UK coal have finished. Industrial scale opencast coal mining is relatively new, we are not fully aware of the long term environmental effects but one thing that I am sure of is that it will have an negative impact on biodiversity in the region. It is impossible to move an entire habitat, abiotic factors will not be the same in the new location, succession (the gradual increase in biodiversity over time) will have to restart. UK coal want to relocate mature ponds so they can mine underneath them. You don't have to be a great crested newt, a mayfly or a Biology lecturer to know that it will never work.
They will say that the opencast will create jobs, this is true - fixed term contract jobs that will be disappear just as quickly as the coal does. UK coal will also bring their own staff, which will do nothing for the local economy. We need long term investment in new technology and renewables that will create skilled, long term jobs for the future in the region.
They will say that they spend millions on improving the roads. That amounts so another roundabout to allow trucks and heavy machinary to turn into the coal field. The last thing we need is another roundabout 200yds from a one with 5 exits, they only vehicles that would ever turn right at this 'road improvment' would be those going to the Stanley area, the road has recently been widened and is now fine without a roundabout. The people who will be infuriated by the roundabout would be commuters who will face further potential delay when driving into Gateshead/Newcastle from the Consett area
But really it doesn't matter what highly paid executives and lawyers from UK Coal say. We the people of the local area must fight the appeal as effectively as we fought original application.
Coal is our heritage not our future.
6 comments:
But this island stands on vast reserves of coal, a means both to independence from actually or potentially war torn corners of the earth, and to high-wage, high-skilled, high-status employment for working-class men.
Opencasting is not the only way of extracting it, but public ownership is by far the most efficient and effective means of organising this highly efficient and effective safeguard of national sovereignty, the Union, and the economic basis of paternal authority.
What says the local MP, a signatory to the EDM, initiated by an MP whom some of us are quite sorry has felt moved to give up the Presidency of the NUM rather than resume the practice of serving trade union leaders sitting in both Houses, calling on the BBC to restore to its press roundup the Morning Star, the only place where one may still read the views of average Mail or Telegraph readers on the NHS or the railways?
Speaking of the railways, what says she about the fact that, a month from now, the village where she lives and where she was until recently a Parish Councillor will have no bus to its railway station on a Sunday or a Bank Holiday, previously a 20-minute journey?
Yes, Coal is certainly my heritage. All four great grandfathers were miners, and socialists. I am a biologist, and have studied genetics too as a my specialism, though long ago. I now teach Biology, well Science. But what convinces me above all, are the tales of my grandmother who would rather send her sons to war than have them spend another minute down the Pit. The future is renewabke energy sources. See think-left.org
Renewable, that is.
RMT boss Bob Crow spoke at the Durham Miners gala called for nationalisation of coal reserves and a return to mining. My granfathers were miners, they worked hard so there kids didnt have to go down the pit. This is development. Pits would be a massive step back despite the need for jobs in the northeast. there are a few reneable startups in the northest. One makes the inside bit of a wind turbine and another designs wave porwed generators, this is the industry of the future, the only problem is that they dont employ in the numbers that the shipbulding, mining and making steel did.
I agree Liam, the miners of the past would be horrified. There are so many other options. Wind farms, a tidal lagoon in the Severn, investigation into wave power, generation from heat, solar panels, and Sue Davies' on Think Left suggests HVDC cables from deserts which could become massive energy source.
Small scale could also be big, The most visible and well publicised being solar panels omn council houses. But air source heat pumps can be retrofitted, and low depth geothermal for a street would be worthy of government invsetment.
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