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.
The decision to stop or allow the proposed 61.4 million tonne coal mine has been delayed. We are keen to apply as much pressure to stop the mine as possible. Please join us in writing to your MP now to ask that they do everything in their power to stop the mine.
Coal to be excavated: 61.4 million tonnes of coal in total and 2.93 million tonnes of coal per annum (at full capacity)
Coal to be sold: 55.6 million tonnes of coal in total and 2.78 million tonnes of coal per annum (at full capacity)…
New Age Exploration Ltd propose to extract up to 33.7 million tonnes of coking coal for steelworks in the UK and beyond between 2025 and 2051 near Carlisle, in South West Scotland. This may worsen local air quality, reduce the value of nearby residential properties, make local roads more dangerous with HGV traffic, and will emit around 73 million…
We will be running a workshop at this year’s Earth First! Summer gathering, which runs Wednesday 31st till Monday 5th in the South West of England.
We are concerned that the 2024 coal phase-out date is being used by the UK Government to deflect criticism for its support of using coal up until that date, when what we need is the most rapid phase-out of coal that is possible as the UK careers further from its climate targets…
Several years ago West Cumbria Mining Ltd, backed by an Australian company applied to extract coal from a new underground coking coal mine under the sea by Whitehaven, Cumbria. A decision is now due, but there are some using the appalling invasion of Ukraine by Russia to justify more mining in the UK.
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There is a law in Wales that helps the country all work together to improve the environment, the economy, the society and the culture. For people, for the planet. For now, and for our future. It is called the Well-being of Future Generations Act. Is it compatible with a coal mine extension at Aberpergwm?
Last Thursday, 18th May, Coal Action Network protested outside of Lloyd’s of London, for their role in insuring the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMX) and the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
[…] 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 […]