Nottinghamshire Indymedia

Events

Startpage

> UK Indymedia
> Global Indymedia

> Guidelines
> Chatroom
> About Us
> Security

> Projects
> On Ya Mobile
> Local Weather

Support Us

We are an all volunteer collective and receive no regular funding. Please consider donating.


Local Events

This events wire is no longer being updated. Please use the new site to publicise events.

More local events on Veggies/Sumac Diary


Freedom of Information

Search archives

Topics

Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech

UK Coal to gain unwelcome publicity at a Leicestershire County Council meeting

Steve Leary | 10.06.2010 14:32

This press release explains why UK Coal plc will twice be the subject of discussion at a Leicestershire County Council Board meeting next week under controversial circumstances.

PR 60)

Coal producer UK Coal appears twice on the agenda of Leicestershire’s Development Control and Regulatory Board meeting on June 17th for controversial reasons.

Firstly the Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) will be presenting their petition asking for a decision on the Minorca Application when Phil Owen and Bob Walsh complete their trek to County Hall on June 17th. It will be explained to the Board that July 3rd will be the first anniversary of UK Coal submitting their planning application for the proposed Minorca Opencast mine and that MOPG argue that any more delay in making a decision whilst we wait for UK Coal to complete their application would be unreasonable.

Secondly a report of work in progress on getting UK Coal to restore their Lounge Disposal site just outside Ashby de la Zouch will be presented. This derelict site, for which UK Coal only had temporary permission to use as a mineral site for the purpose of distributing coal from local opencast mines that were worked from the 1980’s to 2004. As planning permission for mineral use then expired it should then have been restored as agricultural land. But, despite the findings of a Public Inquiry and being served an Enforcement Order by Leicestershire County Council, by March 2010 no such restoration work had been undertaken.
Pressure to restore the site was initially brought by Ashby Civic Society who was already lobbying LCC to take action over the state of the site early in the year. Then MOPG published its independent report on UK Coal, “UK Coal : An Alternative Report”, the last section of which included a series of case studies on local controversies caused by the actions of UK Coal in Lancashire, Yorkshire and at the Lounge site in Leicestershire. The report is free to download from our web site:  http://mopg.co.uk/

At the March meeting of the Development Control and Regulatory Board the decision was taken to consider taking court action over UK Coal’s disregard of their planning obligations in not restoring the site. As County Councillor Rob Fraser is reported as saying

“They (UK Coal) can’t be allowed to make a mockery of the planning system”.
This agenda item updates the Board on what subsequent action has been taken, including having to threaten to use powers under the Town and Country Planning Acts in order to gain UK Coal’s ‘cooperation’ in order to make any progress on the issue.

Steve Leary, MOPG’s Spokesperson said

We are grateful to the Ashby Civic Society for insuring that this matter was discussed in public at the March meeting of the Development Control and Regulatory Board and bought to the wider publics’ attention.

This example of UK Coal disregarding legal obligations to restore the Lounge Site and its recent lack of cooperation with LCC as detailed in the report to the Council next week , shows that where it suits the company to act in such a cavalier manner it will do so. It seems that some extreme pressure had to be exerted on the Company before it began to cooperate with the Council.

On the whole our petition has been signed by those opposing the application. A very few have signed it to speed up the area gaining from the proposed benefits that may come to the area if planning approval is granted. We would suggest that all those in favour of the application should take the time to go and look at the Lounge site to see what may be in store for the Minorca site.

This is easy to do – just take a short car journey up to Ashby, turn right on to the A511 to Coalville and stop just before a concrete bridge goes over a single track railway line. If you look south, over the large derelict site, you are looking at the Lounge site.

This should acts as a warning to all as to what might happen to the Minorca site if UK Coal gained temporary permission to extract the coal and clay. We could face a similar problem in the future, if UK Coal, after they start extracting the coal, decides that they can more profitably develop the site for uses other than restoring it to agricultural land. Then the Company, planners and politicians could deliberate for years over whether to grant planning permission for a change of use. In the meantime the site could lie derelict. This is the dilemma currently facing people in Bolton as UK Coal have indicated that they no longer want to honour the restoration conditions as agreed to for working the Cutacre site as explained in our “UK Coal : An Alternative Report” document.

From our point of view the best way to avoid such a prospect is to get Leicestershire County Council to refuse planning permission for Minorca as soon as possible so that local people do not face the risk of this happening on their doorstep.“

END END END END END

FOR DETAILS ABOUT THE AGENDA PAPERS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT CONTROL AND REGULATORY BOARD MEETING ON THURSDAY JUNE 17TH GO TO:
 http://politics.leics.gov.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=144

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS PRESS RELEASE CONTACT:
STEVE LEARY, SPOKESPERSON, MOPG
4 GREENFIELD ROAD, MEASHAM, SWADLINCOTE, DERBYSHIRE DE12 7LB, tel 05601 767981, email  steve46leary@googlemail.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MOPG PLEASE GO TO:
 http://www.mopg.co.uk or
 http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/minorca-protest.html

Steve Leary
- e-mail: steve46leary@googlemail.com
- Homepage: http://mopg.co.uk

Download this article in pdf format >>
Email this article to someone >>
Submit an addition or make a quick comment on this article >>