Today Newcastle City Council stood with many of it’s residents and unanimously rejected Banks Group’s proposal to extract 800.000 tonnes of thermal coal from Dewley Hill!
We’re delighted at this result. At a virtual hearing councillors followed the Planning Officer’s advice and rejected the application due to five contraventions of the Newcastle Development and Allocations Plan 2015-2030; four contraventions of the Core strategy and Urban Core plan for Gateshead and Newcastle 2010-2030, a breach of the Northumberland minerals plan and paragraph 211a of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Brilliant local group against the application, Defend Dewley Hill are delighted by the result. Local resident Jos Forester-Melville said, “None of us set out on the journey to become activists, but this bunch of taxi drivers, occupational therapists, managers, shop assistants, care workers, teachers, young and older people alike, have joined forces to defend the land we live on and have inadvertently become a campaign group together striving to see an end to fossil fuels. We know that coal is the most catastrophic fossil fuel for our climate and that industries such as steel are rapidly developing new technology to eradicate coal use. We are so pleased that the council listened to common sense and stopped this application.”
There are currently no other applications for new opencast coal mines in the UK. What an incredible position to be in. There is only one opencast operating in England, it is due to close this year. There are none in Scotland and only two in Wales. We sincerely hope that the coal companies realise that “Coal is our heritage, not our future” as local people living in the North East’s ex-mining villages keep saying.
Defend Dewley Hill had instructed Richard Buxton, environmental solicitors, to contact the council on their behalf over worries that the Planning Officer’s report underestimated the likely impact on climate change; overestimated the benefit from fireclay and failed to properly protect local residents from noise and other impacts. The nearest homes are just 68m from the boundary of the extraction. The letter to the Planning Committee can be seen here.
Despite covid restrictions there have been numerous actions against this application this year. Cheeky supporters of the campaign dropped large banners from the High Level bridge in the City centre this week while pixies put out posters in bus shelters showing Banks Group’s real motivations. Check out the pictures.
Major Lloyd’s of London insurer Brit is the latest firm to rule out insurance for Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine project.
Tonight, 18th February 2021, marks the final shipment of coal mined from the North East of England. This marks a momentous victory for the years of anti-coal action, most recently the successfully defeated open cast coal mine application in Dewley Hill, near Newcastle.
People across Australia have been fighting for 10 years to stop one on the most devastating mining projects currently being planned on the globe. Folks in Australia have asked for our help to stop Adani and here’s why…
Today [8thFebruary 2021], youth climate activists added their voice against the planned coking coal mine in West Cumbria. Elijah McKenzie-Jackson (17) submitted a 111,000 signature petition to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Thanks everyone who helped, this action has now ended.
Could you participate in an online demonstration? We’re asking young people to take a photograph of themselves with a placard against the planned coal mine. We want to add these photos to a video of us sending this petition on Monday to demand the government stops this coal mine.
West Cumbria Mining Ltd. want to extract 2.78 million tonnes of coking coal a year from under the sea near Whitehaven in a ‘deep’ coal mine. The coal is predominantly for export and would be consumed by the steel industry. Find out the truth about the proposal.
We’re disappointed to let you know that on the 6th January 2020, the Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick said that the government will not step in and review Cumbria County Council’s decision to approve the Woodhouse Colliery Application.
Today (18/12/20) Newcastle City Council Unanimously rejected Banks Groups’ application to extract 800,000 tonnes of coal and 400,000 tonnes of fireclay from Dewley Hill.
451 Newcastle residents wrote to their councillors asking that the planning committee reject Banks Group’s application to extract coal by opencast at Dewley Hill on the western outskirts of the city.
[…] local campaigners in North East England, supported by LMN member group Coal Action Network, have saved Dewley Hill from Banks Group’s opencast coal mining plan, as Newcastle City Council rejected it. There are now no further applications for opencast coal […]