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.

On the 18th December 2020, Newcastle City Council decides whether to protect 250 acres of greenbelt land or allow a controversial opencast coal mine on the north-eastern edge of Newcastle at an online hearing…

My name is Jos and I’m part of the team at Defend Dewley Hill. We’re a group of residents from Throckley near Newcastle, who set out to save our local landscape from opencast coal extraction, and we really need your support.

Newcastle City Council are expected to decide whether to protect the area at Dewley Hill to the West of the city, or if Banks Group is allowed to opencast it instead before the end of the year. The hearing will either be the 20th November or the 18th December.

If this mine were to go ahead it would mean the first new underground coal mine to be started in the UK in many years. Now the decision will go to Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick,

TWO Opencast coal mines rejected this summer! Plus: plans for coking coal mines and power station closure dates

Late on the 8th September 2020, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said that Banks Group will not be allowed to extract coal from Highthorn, close to Druridge Bay, Northumberland. Save Druridge, the local community group, are delighted.

Campaign to Protect Pont Valley and other local people are delighted that Banks plans to further exploit the Pont Valley were dashed.