Blog Archive Archive - Page 2 of 11 - Coal Action Network

Today, March 13, Ecodefense and Fridays for Future hold a protest rally in Novokuznetsk against coal mining. One of the protesters was detained and spent half an hour at the police station.

Vladimir Slivyak and Arshak Makichan stood in solitary pickets at the entrance to the federal subsoil use agency, which issues licenses for coal mining. Protests with more than one person are ilegal in Russia, hence the size of the actions. Many people living in the area are against the destruction caused by mining in the region.

After Vladimir Slivyak was released, the police rushed to the hotel, where they were staying with other participants in a press tour organized by the Environmental Protection.

Kuzbass, or the Kuznetsk coal basin, is the largest coal basin in Russia, which accounts for 59% of all coal production. Almost 200 million are mined annually, more than during the USSR, which covered a greater area of land than Russia alone does today.

Russia is the biggest exporter to the UK, supplying 37% of coal consumed in both UK power stations and steel making for in 2018, this is predominantly from the Kuzbass region. Coal imports to the UK are failing. Total coal imports in the third quarter of 2019 were 40% lower than in the same period in 2018. This was the lowest value on record.

Environmental protection claims: open pit mining negatively affects public health:

– life expectancy in the region is 3-4 years lower than the average for Russia,

– the incidence of tuberculosis is two times greater,

– indicators for 15 cancers are higher than for Russia, including skin and lung cancer,

– there is an increase in occupational diseases.

Environmental protection states: open-pit coal mining has led to a catastrophic situation in the Kuzbass:

Since the beginning of 2019 to the beginning of 2020 the regime of “black sky” was declared in the cities of the Kemerovo region more than 40 times.

Kuzbass is located in a lowland, so atmospheric pollution does not dissipate and chemical smog forms. In the atmosphere of large cities, increased concentrations of formaldehyde, benzapyrene, nitrogen and carbon oxides, nitrites, nitrates, sulphur, coal dust. When the level of pollution increases, especially in foggy weather, the “black sky” regime is announced in Kemerovo, Novokuznetsk and other cities in the region.

Environmental protection believes that the living conditions of the population are deteriorating, and local residents are severely oppressed:

– only 3 out of 100 people live in satisfactory conditions,

– 80% of the population live near direct coal mining,

– sanitary protection zones around coal mines are reduced from the legal 1000 m to 400 m,

– as a result of explosions during coal mining, houses, stoves, farm buildings are destroyed,

– when new coal mines start local residents are forcibly expelled from their homes,

– protests are severely suppressed: in the villages they can turn off the electricity, close schools, cases of arson of houses have been registered, people receive threats, are illegally detained and prosecuted by the police.

Environmental protection claims that organized protests by activists provoke repression by the state, and the criminal prosecution of Ecodenfense is one of the most striking examples.

Environmental protection declares: in the context of global climate change and the trend of abandoning fossil fuels, the Russian state is not doing anything to prepare the population of the coal-mining region for the time when coal is no longer needed.

An exhibition launches this week at the National Coal Museum. The exhibition brings together experiences of communities from Russia, Colombia, County Durham and South Wales as they live alongside and take on the coal industry. This collection shows glimpses of how everyday lives and cultures are upturned by opencast mining and how people gather strength to try to stop the destruction of homes, communities and land.

“This exhibition is important as it helps opens peoples eyes to what is going on across the world; be it a small welsh village like mine or a desert region in Colombia. These places may mean nothing to the global coal companies but to the local people they mean the world. This exhibition gives a voice to all these small campaigns and brings our voices together. Those voices then become louder and shout together in one voice NO OPENCAST NOT NOW NOT EVER”
Eddy Blanche, United Valleys Action Group, 2020

This exhibition shows how living next door to opencast is to live with the effects of dust, noise, harassment and permanent erasure of once loved land. Whether that be in Kuzbass, La Guajira or Merythr Tydfil.

now their small footprints
are bound over
consumed by machines
interring our horizon
ripping out hawthorn
planted by priests

The exhibition has been curated by the Coal Action Network and includes photographs, poetry and donated objects. We work alongside coal affected communities in Russia, Colombia and the UK. Our approach to climate justice is to amplifying the struggle, voices and demands of those on the front line of fossil fuel extraction.

The name of the exhibition came from something Julia Triston, formerly of County Durham wrote after spending a day sharing and learning with folks from coal affected communities in Colombia.

Banks Group, the mining company seeking to open three projects in the North East has started to sound like a broken record. While there are a million things you can say against new opencast coal extraction, Banks’s PR advisors have found them one tasty line to pedal which makes it sound like common sense to open new coal sites amid a climate emergency:

‘If we don’t get coal from the UK, we’ll get it from abroad which will have a higher carbon footprint. Our coal is the climate friendly alternative!’

1. Coal contributes to the climate emergency regardless of where it is dug up. Banks Group’s coal routes are being monitored and it is going to West Burton Power station. Coal is the fuel that contributes most to global heating per unit of energy produced. This dwarfs the emissions from transport of coal.

2. The UK is awash with coal; Banks Group are not plugging a gap.There is nearly three times the volume of coal already dug up, sitting above ground than power stations can realistically burn before they are due to close in 2024. No matter where it is from, it is surplus to the UK’s demand and therefore is adding additional coal to global stocks, which will be sold to whoever will buy them. The UK must stop digging up AND importing coal. How has this happened? Because renewables have replaced coal.

3. Dodgy economics. The idea that UK coal displaces coal from elsewhere, and is therefore somehow ‘neutral’ has been debunked numerous times by leading resource economists. The remaining proponents of this idea are by and large, fossil fuel companies. If a mining company thinks opening their mine is ‘carbon neutral’, they must be able to show which mine in Russia or USA will close as a result. Banks have not done this. The evidence is clear: UK coal production went down this year but imports didn’t fill that space as Banks claimed they would, they went down too – because no one wants more coal, from anywhere.

4. Unburnable carbon. A recent UN report shows that if the world continues to take the approach that Banks Group advocates for, then we will not keep global emissions below 1.5 degrees by 2030, and not avert climate disaster.

5. Undeclared methane emissions. Banks cannot claim to know the climate cost of their coal because they haven’t declared their methane emissions from the opencast coal site itself. Transport emissions account for a small proportion of emissions from a mine, yet this is the only thing Banks bases it’s claim on when it says that its coal is cleaner. Methane leakage from coal mines last year contributed more to global heating than aviation and shipping combined. Methane emissions vary wildly per mine, and sometimes they can be greater than the emissions from burning the coal. Banks have done no assessment of methane emissions from any of their current or proposed sites.

Banks Group add that their coal is needed, it’s no longer going to power stations, “it’s all going to steel”.

6. Coal from Bradley is not going to steel according to all publicly available information. Only 14% of the coal at Bradley has been declared high enough quality for steel, and the current worked seam (which also runs through the proposed West Bradley) was assessed as ‘poor quality’ (i.e. not suitable for steel). We monitor the trains from their stockpile at Blyth, and can see none going to steel and cement works, instead they are going to West Burton Power Station. Even if it was being sold for steel production, steelworks and cement works sell coal on to power stations – so Banks can never be sure where all of their coal ends up.

There’s plenty more we could say about the claim that coal is needed for steel, but that’s for another day! In the mean time, this report by the Green Alliance covers it brilliantly.

And what does ‘goaf’ mean? It’s the process of letting the remains around the dug out coal seam fall into the void, like the miners did when they originally deep mined the Bradley site. A site which has already been ‘goafed’ is one without much substance left in it to mine, a little like a mining company that is attempting to style itself a climate saviour in 2020.

In 2018, 11.95 million tonnes of coal were consumed by UK power stations and industry.[1] In the year from the end of January 2019 to the beginning of February 2020 coal supplied the UK’s electricity grid with 5.5 Terawatt hours, amounting to 2.1% of electricity produced.[2]

Opencast coal In September 2018 there are 10 operating opencast sites in the UK. Between July and September 2019, 601,599 tonnes of coal were produced.[3] In 2018, 2.6 million tonnes of coal were extracted by opencast mining. An all time low.[1][5]

Underground mining There are currently no underground mines operating of significant size. The two underground mines produced 32,431 tonnes of coal, just 5.1% of the coal extracted in the UK between July and September 2019.[3]

Proposed underground mine West Cumbria Mining were given permission for the land aspect of a new underground coking coal near Whitehaven in 2019. If constructed this would produce coking coal for export for 50 years. The decision is currently subject to a Judicial Review, which was allowed to start in February 2020, into the legitimacy of the permission.

Power stations There are currently five UK power stations, including Fiddlers Ferry which closes in March 2020. In early February the Prime Minister said that the coal phase-out could be brought forward from the end of 2025 to October 2024. This is not soon enough for communities at the front-lines of fossil fuel extraction.

Stockpiles Total UK coal stock levels increased in 2018 to 5.3 million tonnes, which was 0.2 million tonnes higher than in 2017.[5]

Imports In 2018 imports of coal were 10.1 million tonnes, which was up by 19 per cent compared to 2017.[5] Net imports accounted for 80 per cent of the UK’s supply for both power stations and industry (ignoring stockpile changes and exports).[6][3]

Coal imports are falling, but not quick enough. Total coal imports in the third quarter of 2019 were 40% lower than in the same period in 2018. This was the lowest value on record.[7]

Exports Celtic Energy and Hargreaves are exporting coal.[8] In 2018 exports amounted to 600,000 tonnes.[1] In 2019 this amount has increased each quarter.[9]

Banks Group, responsible for the Bradley (Pont Valley) mine, are now arguing that coal is needed for steel and cement production, and claim all their Bradley coal is going to this. But the data we are collecting shows otherwise.

Have Banks found industrial buyers for their coal? Have they stopped selling to power stations? Through tracking of truck and train movements, Coal Action Network have gathered evidence to show that Banks coal is going to West Burton Power Station.

We monitored coal movement from Bradley and Shotton in July and August of this year.

We monitored train movements from all major coal ports including Port of Blyth, to power stations, steel works and cement works.

The UK is not known for exporting coal, but coal exports have increased steadily since 2015 and jumped 13% in 2018-2019, likely due to lack of domestic demand.

We know Banks exported coal in from Port of Blyth in 2016 where its stockpile is: “Having investigated which export markets we might target with it, we believe there are considerable overseas opportunities for us to work towards”

Banks Group is adding to the UK’s inflated stock of the world’s most polluting fossil fuel, which is being burned by a power station that should be closing. Coal mining in the UK is adding to the consumption of coal in spite of the 2025 coal-phase out.

This coal is coming from Bradley opencast coal mine which Banks seeks to expand. With a drying up market for power-station coal and exports going up, there is potential for this coal to be exported and burned elsewhere in the world and Banks are well placed to do it.

Banks cannot claim that the coal from Bradley or their proposed West Bradley exists primarily to meet a national need – instead it is contributing to a national and international climate emergency.

As a profit-driven mining operation, Banks Mining is attempting to prove its continued relevance by disassociating itself from coal-fired power in its public communications, but this is contradicted by the data. In a desperate market, it will sell its coal to whoever will buy it.

What do you do when your local coal company sends you a glossy brochure of lies in the post?

Residents near to the Bradley opencast coal mine were fed up with Banks Groups’ PR leaflets full of misinformation only telling the company’s side of the story about the opencast. So Campaign to Protect Pont Valley and Coal Action Network teamed up to write and distribute a different version around the neighbouring houses.

(Clue: ours tells the truth about what residents experience from opencast coal-mining, and about the lack of need for Banks’ coal).

High Stables residents (nearest to the mine) don’t even receive Banks’ leaflets any more!

[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.coalaction.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ProtectPontValley_CommunityUpdate_Jan2019.pdf” title=”ProtectPontValley_CommunityUpdate_Jan2020″]

Banks Group want to expand the Bradley Opencast coal mine in the Pont Valley. Campaign to Protect Pont Valley have launched a new campaign to oppose this planning application and they need your support.

I am opposed to this extension of the Bradley opencast in the Pont Valley because…….

Can you email Durham County Council to tell them in your own words why you are opposed to this opencast extension?

Some of the reasons people object to it:
– Noise, dust and blasting near to homes
– This coal is not needed.
-Destruction of further habitats
-We need to stop burning fossil fuels now

Choose one or two. Find a way to say it in your own words. It doesn’t need to be long, or super knowledgeable. It needs to show you care. It can also be long if you have an eye for detail and some time.

Email your objection to planning@durham.gov.uk and copy in protectpontvalley@gmail.com

Make sure to include these two reference numbers DM/19/03567/MIN and DM/19/03569/VOCMW and your postcode.

I am opposed to this extension of the Bradley opencast in the Pont Valley because…….

Local Impacts
• Homes close to the site will be affected – there are homes 150 metres from the site, even closer than High Stables where people already experience daily noise, regular blasting and dust falling in their gardens, which they are breathing in. It will be only 80 meters from the local pub, the Jolly Drovers.

• There is a cumulative impact with the original mine and surrounding deforestation, an extension would add to this – local authorities are meant to protect people from the cumulative impact of ‘development’. Local residents complaints about the existing opencast ignored. Banks claim they offer ‘development with care’ but we feel we have been treated with nothing but contempt.

• Five more months of coal dust and blasting. Banks say that the expansion can be done within the original time frame and restoration completed in 12 months by August 2021. They are keeping quiet about coal extraction needing to go on for a further 5 months, to Jan 2021 instead of finishing in August 2020.

• There are protected species on the land they want to dig up – birds, butterflies, badgers and rare fungus. This habitat has already been severely damaged by the existing mine and an expansion will put increased stress on the diverse species that remain in the area. It permanently affects the migration and nesting sites of birds; swallows, cuckoos, skylarks and curlew which may never return.

• The new application doesn’t support any additional jobs. Banks say it supports jobs, but workers could move to their wind projects.

• We don’t need more coal. Banks claim they are saving carbon emissions in transport because the coal is ‘local’, but they are adding to the UK’s huge surplus of coal, which is being increasingly exported abroad and contributes to climate change wherever it is burned.

• The tide has turned against coal. There have been no new opencast approved through the planning system since January 2016.

• Durham County Council has declared a Climate Emergency. The UK is meant to be carbon neutral by 2050.

• Banks coal is going to power stations where there is already a substantial surplus. They claim their coal is essential for steel manufacturing but have provided no evidence that that is where it’s going. Furthermore, the steel industry already has established suppliers of coal and is not expanding.

Banks Group were in the High Court on Wednesday 27^th November amid allegations of wildlife crime at their current ‘Bradley’ opencast coal site in the Pont Valley, County Durham. The claimant is Don Kent, of Shotley Bridge, County Durham, who is seeking to “hold Banks Group to account for its actions which led to the destruction of the habitat of protected species.”

The High Court has upheld the claim that the wildlife prosecution against the coal-mining company HJ Banks was an environmental case, and therefore that local objector Don Kent can receive financial cost protection under the UN Arhaus convention. The convention exists to remove the costs barrier to individuals who want to hold companies legally accountable for alleged environmental crimes.

Don Kent, the local resident and campaigner who is bringing the claim against Banks Group, said this ruling means the case can now advance. Without costs protection Mr Kent would not have been able to continue, given Banks alleged costs of £60,000 to date. His aim is to take a prosecution against the company concerning the alleged destruction of the habitats of great crested newts at the Bradley site near Dipton and Leadgate.

The coal mining company Banks Group have proposed to expand the controversial project to extract a further 90,000 tonnes of coal to the west of the current site, in an area that also hosts protected species.

“Banks Group are riding roughshod over my local community and wildlife in order to extract the last drops of profit they can make from coal. At this hearing the Judge granted me costs protection to allow me to continue taking this private prosecution to ensure there is justice. I have the evidence to show that Banks broke the law in order to get the coal out. It is unspeakably arrogant that Banks Group is pursuing an extension to this same site, whilst their actions are in question by the courts” said Don Kent.

Mr Kent launched the private prosecution in September 2018, after the police failed to investigate his reporting of the crime. He initiated an appeal to the High Courts after Banks successfully argued the case should be dropped on a technicality, i.e. that the incorrect name of the company mining coal at the site was used on the summons. He has raised the funds to appeal via an online crowdfunder with 250 supporters to date.

Don Kent says “Banks were attempting to intimidate me as a local resident through outrageous financial threats. They are desperate for this legal case to be dismissed on a technicality because they want to evade public scrutiny of their conduct. They are worried about getting planning permission for their West Bradley expansion in Country Durham, and they are anxious about their reputation. So they should be. The contempt they have shown for our community and the environment has been clear the whole way through”.

Since its arrival in the Pont Valley, local residents have repeatedly reported Banks to the authorities for their failure to comply with planning and environmental conditions. Banks have been ordered to stop work on several occasions for breaching the standards on dust and noise levels. There have been frequent complaints to Durham County Council.

Supporting Mr Kent, Isobel Tarr, from the Coal Action Network, said “In court yesterday Banks Group claimed to have spent £60,000 on this case before it’s even been heard in court. Meanwhile coal is in the final phase of its use in the UK and they have announced no investment in re-training their workforce. They should cut their losses, admit they acted irresponsibly, and instead of hiring expensive lawyers to defend their reputation, close the coal wing of their business and spend this money on enabling their workforce to transition to the renewables arm.”

Today one person was found not guilty of ‘Assault by Battery’ by a judge at Peterlee Magistrates court. The assault was alleged to have been inflicted on a security guard at Hargreave’s Field House opencast, which lies between the villages of West Rainton and Pittington, Durham. During an Earth First! action at the opencast in August. In court the security guard’s statement was inconsistent with his oral testimony. In reality the security guards were being overly heavy handed.

On August 19^th 2019, 50 people from Earth First! shut down Hargreaves’ Field House opencast coal mine, for the day. This day of action was the last day of the Earth First! summer gathering which took place close to the site. 13 people were arrested for a mixture of aggravated trespass, criminal damage or assault charges. All other charges were dropped before coming before a court. The opencast operation was shut for the day to support the neighbouring community whose homes are covered in dust from the opencast and in protest to the environmental destruction of the coal industry.

On the same day four people blocked the entrance to Banks’ Shotton opencast to directly disrupt the activity of the last English coal company trying to open new opencast coal mines. Banks Group has applied for permission to extend its opencast into an area Banks call West Bradley, on the Leadgate side of the current site.

The Field House opencast started in March 2018. It was rejected planning permission in 2014 by Durham County Council, when there was significant local opposition. The opencast was approved in January 2016 following an appeal. Field House and Bank’s Bradley opencast started in 2018.

Hargreaves are violating the terms of the planning permission at Field House. There are various conditions of the Field House Appeal Decision document, a legal contract, which have been contradicted for example:

1. “The Dust Action Plan shall be reviewed at six-monthly intervals and the latest version adhered to at all times.” This hasn’t happened.

2. “Coal and fireclay stockpile heights would not exceed 4m in height.” The site boundary with Robin Lane has a 6m high fence. On numerous occasions in 2019 the stockpile has been photographed at being higher than this. [ Point 51, page 51, and Point 24, page 6, Appeal Decision, John Woolcock, Planning Inspectorate, 5^th January 2016.]

Susan Elliott says, “I live close to Hargreave’s Field House opencast coal mine. Hargreaves do not have planning permission to use the sizer to crush coal coal, are stockpiling coal higher than 4 meters, and have failed to revise the Dust Action Plan at the agreed 6 monthly intervals. Durham County Council have failed to enforce the planning permission, as the Minerals planning Authority failed to enforce the lack of planning permission for the sizer for over 6 months, or the breach in planning conditions relating to the revisions of the Dust Action Plan for over a year. This isn’t acceptable. These planning breaches show that Hargreaves disregards the health and well being of people living in this area. Abiding by the conditions would mean less dust on our homes and in our lungs, but may have reduced the profits to Hagreaves. Durham County Council is failing to act, I’m grateful to Earth First! for their action against this mine and for highlighting the environmental problems.”

Dust is a problem because there are associated health problems. Air pollution in deep mines is well known to have caused health problems to the underground miners. Now people living close to coal opencasts are exposed to the same dangers. The British Lung Foundation says, “Fine particles (PM2.5) may reach the breathing sacs deep in your lungs… These particles can carry toxic chemicals which are linked to cancer. Particulate matter irritates your nose and throat and may be associated with more severe symptoms in people with asthma. It results in more people with lung conditions (COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], asthma, bronchitis) and heart conditions (heart attacks, strokes) being admitted to hospital. It also causes early deaths from lung and heart disease. There’s also evidence that long-term exposure to particulate matter can contribute to the development of lung cancer and possibly asthma.”

Hargreaves has been crushing coal close to the North/North West site boundary, within 300m of West Rainton homes and 700m of the West Rainton Primary School since February this year. As an additional source of dust emissions this would have required a revision of the Dust Action Plan. However it was only in November, almost 9 months later, that an additional dust monitor was located near this boundary, albeit on the other side of the A690. Dust emissions are not being properly monitored at Field House. PM 10 and PM 2.5 emissions are not being monitored as per the regulations. Due to failures with the instrument, between February 2019 to May 2019 only four days of PM 10 and 2.5 data were collected. Additionally data was missing for June and July, two of the driest months of the year.

Sam Jenkins who was part of the action said, “It is vital that we stand in solidarity with communities locally and globally that have their homelands colonized by opencast coal mines. Being in the Field House opencast it was clear that dust suppression was not a primary concern to Hargreaves. It’s safe to say with any area of land, you can never know how much wildlife is there and what will be affected by destroying any part of that ecosystem. Whole ecosystems are being completely torn apart by opencast extraction, an argument that gets little attention but this is an act of ignorance as we rely on these wildlife systems to have any sort of symbiotic future.”

Earth First! vows to continue to fight against opencast coal mines across the country.

Campaign to Protect Pont Valley has launched a new campaign to oppose Banks Group’s new application to expand the existing Bradley opencast coal site to the west towards Leadgate. The company last week announced their plan to extract a further 90,000 tonnes of coal and 20,000 tonnes of fireclay.

Annie Lee, local resident and member of Campaign to Protect Pont Valley said “Banks Group have got a real fight on their hands. Last time they were able to avoid going through the planning process by buying up the existing permission from UK Coal. This time they can’t evade public scrutiny. They have been unsuccessful so far in their ongoing applications to mine at Druridge Bay and at Dewley Hill. Let’s not forget that no new opencast coal mines have been approved since January 2016. We are more ready than we ever have been to stop them, and we will stop them.”

Inspired by Defend Dewley Hill, which this summer garnered over 4,000 objections to Banks Group’s proposal to opencast near Newcastle, the local campaigners near Bradley are confident they can raise ‘a mountain’ of objections by the time the application goes before the planning committee in spring 2020.

Barbara Seale of High Stables, 300 metres from the current site said ‘We can already hear intense and regular noise from the machines and from the blasting with explosives, not to mention breathing in dust which we see settle in our gardens. Meanwhile our complaints go ignored. Banks claim they offer ‘development with care’ but the community here feels it has been treated with nothing but contempt.’

The proposed expansion will be closer to people’s homes than the current project; 150 metres from Pont Lane, and 80 metres from the Jolly Drovers pub.

A local resident of Leadgate whose grandfather worked in the deep pit said ‘The use of explosives will be more intense than the current site. This particular seam on the Durham coalfield was known by the Eden Miners as ‘the bastard seam’, because you need to blast through a thick layer of sandstone to get to the coal. This will create even more harmful dust and loud noise.’

Banks Group are this week appearing in the High Court amid allegations of wildlife crime at the current Bradley site, raised by local resident, Don Kent. Mr Kent said, ‘I have evidence to show that Banks Group destroyed the habitat of protected species in their pursuit of coal on the current site. This is not only a breach of planning conditions, it is a criminal offence They simply cannot be trusted to develop the site to West Bradley, which is full of protected species of birds, plus bats, deer, badgers and diverse fauna.’

Scarlet Hall from Coal Action Network added ‘Banks Group have already embarked on a transparent misinformation campaign to back their new project. They claim they offer ‘habitat enhancement’ but this proposal will put further stress on the diverse habitats of protected species which are already threatened by the current mine. They claim they are saving carbon emissions in transport because the coal is ‘local’, but they are adding to the UK’s huge surplus of coal, which is being increasingly exported abroad and contributes to climate change wherever it is burned. They claim their coal is essential for steel manufacturing but have provided no evidence that that is where it’s going. The community is ready to take on Banks’ PR machine and stop this bullying company destroying the valley yet more and polluting for profit.’

Planning Officer Claire Teasdale said the following about how to make representations on the application, “The statutory overall expiry date for representations is 12 December 2019. The Council will however accept representations up to determination but recommends that they are submitted earlier to allow consideration of the issues raised.” Representations can be made online to the Durham County Council planning portal, by searching ‘Bradley’ at http://publicaccess.durham.gov.uk, in writing to Durham Council planning department via email to planning@durham.gov.uk or in writing to Durham County Council Planning Development (Strategic), Room 4/123-128, County Hall, Durham DH1 5UL