Don is a resident local to the Bradley opencast coal mine, in the Pont Valley, and a long term campaigner against opencast coal mining in the Pennine hills. In 2018 he got involved in the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley, to try and stop Banks Group from starting a new opencast coal mine, and is now taking a private prosecution against the company, with the support of his community. He currently has a crowdfunder campaign to help him pay for this legal case. I spoke to him on the phone to hear more about his fight for justice
Why are you taking this private prosecution against Banks Group?
This company are riding roughshod over my local community and wildlife in order to extracts the last drops of profit they can make from coal before the whole industry ends in five years. As an individual, I am 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. They will do it again if we don’t hold them to account.
The land before the Banks Group arrived
How did you end up taking a wildlife crime private prosecution against Banks Group?
I was there, along with many other people, the day that Banks Group started to bring the equipment on to the site in the Pont Valley. Before they arrived, the site was home to great crested newts. Their equipment was damaging the habitat of this protected species. This is a crime so I decided to go to the police station as I was available to go.
I went to Consett police stations. I was interviewed. A police officer contacted me a bit later to say they weren’t going to pursue my complaint. At which point I decided that local people would need to hold them to account.
Banks have committed other breaches on site, mainly planning conditions, but all the authorities have washed their hands of it. They say Banks may have breached planning laws but they aren’t going to do anything about it. What that does is it leaves individuals and citizens groups to hold companies to account.
Don talking to the BBC about the impact of Banks on the local community and environment
This private prosecution is about a wildlife crime against one species – the great crested newt. Why is the great crested newt so important?
Great crested newt found just before Banks Group arrived with their diggers
I am not an ecologist but I do understand the interconnectedness of everything we have and everything we do. If you destroy one part of the whole of the network, and you destroy the habitat of rare animals then the whole suffers. Great Crested Newts are protected for a reason. It is very difficult to get protection for creatures in Britain. But these newts are protected for a reason because they are rare. Their habitat was wantonly destroyed by Banks, knowing that this pond had rare animals in it. I am taking this case to get justice and accountability from Banks on what they have done to the local environment.
Banks Group ignored the finding of this Great Crested Newt
Most Governments Local authorities, organisations and most importantly the scientists agree there is a climate emergency, well then, the first thing we need to do is stop producing fossil fuels, but secondly we need to take care of biodiversity and habitats. This case is part of trying to protect the biodiversity we have left in the UK.
How have Banks responded to your private prosecution and what have you learnt about them as a company?
Banks have responded by paying very expensive barristers to try to intimidate me to drop the case and they are arguing over every little detail. Banks are prepared to do this because they are worried about losing their ongoing ability to evade scrutiny, they are worried about their ability to get planning permission for further sites in the valley, and they are worried about their reputation.
Their response indicates that they are prepared to override the local community, prepared to do almost anything to continue opencasting coal in its last few years.
Banks say they will restore the Bradley site once they finish extracting coal. From living near opencast coal mines since the 70s, what have you learnt about restoration of opencast coal mines?
Back in to the 70s and 80s there were opencast mines starting in my local area. I was involved in opposing them then and what I learnt then was that – apart from climate change, which for me is the biggest thing – is that the land takes at least a hundred years to recover, if it ever does.
Baffle banks at Bradley opencast
This is because the soil becomes so degraded. The soil they put in the baffle banks [five metre high long mounds of former top soil to hide the opencast] is dead, apart from the 50cm or so on the surface . They infill the hole with rubble and then spread this now dead soil on top. You now have a layer of dead soil over a layer of rubble. So Banks can say that the restoration project is going ahead and that it will be wonderful but we know and they know that everything you put back is artificial. It requires a huge amount of attention to get it back to productivity. You have to spend a staggering amount of money revitalising the soil, usually with artificial fertilisers, and even then the land is totally different. Although I wouldn’t deny you can create new and artificial wildlife havens, they too will take a long time to recover.
The geology is different, the drainage is different. Restoration is really about rubble. Restoration is shoving soil on top of a rubble heap. And all of this upheaval and destruction, which will take a hundred years to heal, is all for an amount of coal that we don’t need. We already have too much coal in stockpiles in the UK.
Although I am concerned about the environment, I am not that emotional about it. If someone proposed something like a wind farm, it can be seen as a detriment to the visual landscape, I understand that, but I still think it should go ahead as it is not a permanent addition to landscape and it is providing clean energy. However with coal it is the opposite. You have got a permanent alteration – the actual operation destroys the environment and the global environment. When a wind farm is gone there is no trace. Banks are developing wind farms and I support that part of their business, they know this is the future and coal is the past.
Local residents take in the arrival of the opencast
What have been the costs to you and your family of this case?
It has produced stress and strain and worry on me and the family. That is understandable. But that is what comes with territory of trying to hold people to account. I am really grateful to everyone who is supporting my crowdfunder. That has helped a lot.
Don currently has a crowdfunder campaign to help him pay for this legal case. He has reached his second target of £5000 and is now aiming for £8000. by the end of November.
Aberthaw power station is closing in March 2020. As yet there is no certainty about what happens next. While a consultation process has been announced with workers, nothing has been said publicly about the restoration of the site. Just transition rightly include the lives of workers in the industry, but alongside that, there is also the question of justice in the transition for the wider community and the local environment. What do people living locally to Aberthaw want to happen next to the site? This article takes a look at the history of the area, through an interview with local Rodney Bird, to see what the future might hold.
Aberthaw power station aerial photo
St Athan is the nearest village to Aberthaw, two miles aware. They have an active local history group. Rodney Bird is a member and was keen to share his history of the area when I visited the village, as part of Coal Action Network’s work of reaching out to communities affected by the coal industry. He was born in Cowbridge, seven miles from Aberthaw and spent his summers at the Lays; the beach and common land that became Aberthaw power station. Aberthaw was built on this common land, despite a big effort by the local golf club who tried to stop the seizure of the land by the National Coal Board. This article explores this recent history, and suggests that sharing these stories from living memory can influence what happens to the land after the power station closes in March 2020.
View of the Leys before the power station
The power station currently occupies all of the land in the centre of this photo, which shows the Lays beach and golf club. At high tide, the golf course was surrounded by water on three sides; the sea and the River Thaw. The building of Aberthaw led to a diversion of the river.
Rodney reminisces about the Mullet pool, one of three sea pools that people swam in. He describes Sunday School groups being given lifts to the beach by kind farmers and staying late in to the night. He spent his summer days beach combing and golf ball hunting and occasionally learning golf.
Rodney speaks proudly of his time as a junior member. People use to walk from Barry to play golf, or hitch rides on carts and stay overnight in the popular Ocean House. Rodney added “my family were privileged and lucky enough to have a bungalow in the grounds of the Ocean House. We had three bedrooms and a verandah with a view of the course”.
The golf course, and adjoining common land, was chosen by the Central Electricity Authority as the site for Aberthaw power station and “taken over”, according to Rodney. The golf club members voted and the club got a mandate from its members to oppose the take over. A public inquiry was held and the golf club were optimistic they would win.
However, in 1955 they got the news that the compulsory purchase was going ahead. “It was described as a tragedy by some people and I can understand that” said Rodney, whose father was the club Captain at the time. He remembers people being very sad. The whole area shifted to an industrial site, and the River Thaw was diverted 300yds west of its original route.
What happens now that Aberthaw is going to close?
“It would cost more to demolish than to leave as it is. But if they leave it as it is it will be a concrete and steel jungle. It needs total remediation. The Lays is where my heart is and that the whole site should be restored to nature.”
After meeting with Rodney, I headed down to East Aberthaw to take in the land. I pass a family fishing by one of the old sea pools. They tell me I am stood in what was once the estuary of the River Thaw, once the busiest port in South Wales.
There are old groin sea defences and the newer concrete defences built to protect the power station. Inside these sea defences is allegedly significant amounts of buried asbestos, from the demolition of ‘Aberthaw A’ and a substantial ash spoil heap. The maintenance of these sea defences through a long term management plan is crucial to prevent this toxic waste leaching further in to the wider environment. The local community needs to be given means to participate in the design of the remediation process for this power station site. The living histories of this land, such as the memories of Rodney, can enrich this process
The Construction of Aberthaw Power Station
For those who have only lived with the industrial site of Aberthaw it can be hard to imagine a different future. Sharing this story of love and care for this area, including the golf club’s opposition to a land grab, can help us generate healthy, thriving and safe visions for the area.
If you have your own history or vision for the area you want to share, or news on the future development of the site please get in touch: scarlet@coalaction.org.uk.
Thank you to the St Athan History Group for documenting all this history and sharing their photos with me, without whom this article wouldn’t have been possible.
RWE announced in August that its Aberthaw power station will close in March 2020. This is a vital step forward in the battle against unsustainable power and air pollution.
Aberthaw power station was allowed to break EU air quality standards. Between 2008 and 2011 it released double the amount of nitrogen dioxide permitted. The UK government enabled the pollution in a misguided mission to protect Welsh mining jobs, which supplied the coal. The European Court of Justice ruled against the UK government in 2016.
Aberthaw power station opened in 1971. It was burning coal extracted in the Welsh valleys, including from the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, Ffos-y-fran. Opencast coal mining totally destroys the ecosystems above the coal, as vast pits are dug by machines, releasing dust into the air. This settles on homes and farm land nearby.
We will set out 2,900 clay figures outside BEIS to acknowledge the lives which could be saved each year if we quit coal now.
People living in the Welsh valleys have been campaigning against new opencast coal mines, created to fuel Aberthaw, and lobbying to close the power station. Local campaigners, Chris and Alyson Austin said, “For us, living in the South Wales valleys this coal-fired power station has been the bane of our life! It has been the enabler for all the opencast coal mines throughout the South Wales coalfields.”
During the period Aberthaw was allowed to exceed the EU air quality standards 400 people a year died from the impacts of its combustion. Most in south Wales, but some deaths were linked to the power station in Bristol, Bath and as far away as the Netherlands.
Following the EU ruling the power station started to burn almost entirely Russian coal. Russian coal predominantly comes from the Kuzbass region in central southern Siberia. Here the conditions are extreme, traditional ways of life are wiped out. The mines in very close proximity to homes and coal waste heaps are everywhere, blowing dust over the population and the habitats the people rely on.
In 2016 Coal Action Network, Reclaim the Power and Earth First! took direct action against Aberthaw power station. The only access road was closed twice; a hundred people strong demonstration demonstration on the beach also stopped vehicle movements for the day; Ffos-y-fran opencast was closed for a day as a result of two lock ons and RWE nPower’s head office in Swindon was put under shut down by a protest.
Coal Action Network and others were calling for an immediate closure of the power station, arguing that the historic air pollution from the power station meant it had no legitimacy to continue poisoning people, even at reduced levels to previous years. In addition burning coal from other sources required an upgrade, which seemed likely to keep the power station operating for several more years.
Aberthaw has also seen protests against its contribution to climate change, with a blockade on fossil fuels day 2008. A group of people from Bristol Rising Tide stopped trains entering or exiting the power station in 2010 for a day.
The UK government said in 2017 that it would phase out coal by the end of 2025. For communities on the front-line of coal extraction and climate change this is not soon enough. The discourse has however enabled power station closures like this one to go ahead.
Following the EU ruling Aberthaw was only operating at reduced hours and when there was significant need. In the 12 months to the end of September 2019 coal supplied just 2.9% of electricity. Other energy sources including renewable sources, are producing a larger proportion of the electricity than coal, the greatest historical cause of climate change.
Alyson and Chris say, “We feel for those who will lose their jobs at the plant, but the owners – RWE, and the Welsh Government have seen the writing on the wall for this plant since at least 2008, and with the European Court of Justice ruling against them in 2015, along with the plant being kept alive on £27 Million+ of public money, they can’t have any excuse for not providing just transition of employment for these workers.”
With Aberthaw closing and Cottam gone, only Ratcliffe and West Burton coal power stations have no plans to close prior to the 2025 phase-out date. Drax has been given permission to replace the coal power station units by burning another fossil fuel – gas. But is reliant on government subsidies and Northern Ireland’s multifuel Kilroot’s future is uncertain after it survived a 2018 expected closure.
RWE is one of Europe’s biggest power generators. It’s Hambacher and Garzweiler opencast mines in the German Rhineland are sites of huge opposition. RWE wants to destroy the Hambacher forest, which has been defended by activists for several years. As both mines expand they have consumed several villages. People living near Garzweiler say that this must stop, demanding Human Rights Before Mining Rights.
Coal has had its day. Lots of people have fought against Aberthaw and are pleased that it will soon close. RWE and the government need to ensure that the workers are not thrown on the scrap heap. RWE needs to take climate change seriously and end all of its’ fossil fuel projects.
West Cumbria Mining have been granted planning permission for the on land section of a coking coal mine which would reach under the Irish sea.
Lead by Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole and South Lakes Action on Climate Change – towards transition, a number of campaign groups and the local MP, Mr Farron, have called for the government to ‘call in’ the decision. This would mean that the approval by Cumbria County Council is reconsidered by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local government who would give the final decision.
Coal Action Network has today written to the Secretary of State to add to calls that this decision should be made by central government, due to the climate change impacts, as well as the biased presentation of information during the hearing.
Unlike Banks Group’s proposals for new coal mines this mine, if it were to go ahead Whitehaven would produce coking coal, mainly for export to Europe, by deep mining methods and could last 50 years. The coal would be used in steel works.
Although less well understood the climate change impacts of steel production are significant. In order to reach climate change reduction targets and prevent the worst of global warming, we need an urgent decarbonising of the steel industry.
This is a reprint of the Earth First! press release:
Activists under the banner of Earth First! Take on Coal Mining in the North East of England Two Coal Mines Shut Down
In the early hours of this morning, activists from the North East, around the UK and abroad entered and occupied machinery in Field House mine and blockaded Shotton mine to stop them from continuing to dig up coal, destroying the surrounding environment and contributing to the climate catastrophe.
Opencast coal mining is strongly resisted in the “desolate North”, an area that has become a sacrifice zone for continued economic growth at the cost of the global climate, local environment and community health. It supplies the UK’s dirty power stations, leading CO2 emitters, while people in the global South are suffering the consequences. Even in the UK we are starting to see the impacts of climate change such as flooding and the expected sea level rise will affect coastal areas around the country.
Field House opencast started in 2018 and is operated by Hargreaves. The exact destination or power stations that the coal is being transported to is unknown. Machinery inside the mine is occupied, despite violent attacks by security.
Coal provided just 5.3% of the electricity generated in the UK in 2018. Recent research by Friends of the Earth has shown that already, enough coal is held in stockpiles in the UK to last until 2025, the date by which the UK government has committed to phasing out coal.
Yet, it allows for continued extraction, expansion and even proposals for 2 new coal mines to go ahead.
Coal burning is not only one of the main contributors to climate change, but also destroys valuable habitat and impacts air quality where it is dug and where it is burnt. The Bradley mine in the Pont Valley, Durham for instance, violated European and UK nature conservation legislation by destroying Great Crested Newt habitat.
We need to stop importing coal, and we need to stop digging it up in the UK now. Fracking, biomass, gas and nuclear are not solutions either. Neither do we want large-scale, corporate-controlled renewable energy installations that rely on the mining of rare metals elsewhere to power industrial so-called “development”. Green capitalism is not the answer.
Instead, we have to work towards radically different, locally and communally controlled, off-grid solutions that involve the use of DIY technologies made with recycled materials. These solutions need to be coupled with a drastic reduction in energy consumption, and a wider, radical opposition to our capitalist plutocracy. Such systems can then be embedded in non-hierarchically organised sharing economies that operate according to principles of mutual aid and solidarity.
EarthFirst! is a platform for people to take direct action against the destruction of the earth. We adhere to principles of non-hierarchical organisation and the use of direct action to confront, stop and reverse the destruction of the earth.
No compromise in defence of the earth!
@earthfirst_uk
Background info
The Durham coalfield has been a work place and source of energy since Roman times. At its height, this coalfield employed almost 250,000 mineworkers and their union was the lifeblood of their communities. Durham miners participated in the national strike for a year from March 1984 resisting the government’s plan to close more than 70 underground mines, (but only 20 closures were acknowledged at the time) in an effort to increase electricity production from imported coal, nuclear and gas and try to smash the power of the unions. Miners came together to fight against the pit closures and to support the families left in poverty as wages stopped coming in.
The last underground mine in the Durham closed in 1993, but the community culture born of the industry and collective resilience carries on. Now members of the same communities are fighting to stop the total ecological obliteration, noise, dust, heavy traffic, denial of access to natural spaces and community disempowerment that are opencast coal extraction.
Also nearby lies a site of continued strong opposition to coal by the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley who battle against Banks Group in their valley. Banks Group’s the only English company submitting plans to expand its coal extraction venture, with applications awaiting decisions to opencast Dewley Hill (outskirts of Newcastle) and at Druridge Bay (a stunning beach north of Newcastle). Banks wants to extend the opencast in the Pont Valley and could put in further extension applications at its two existing opencast sites in Northumberland.
Guest Author: June Davison from Campaign to Protect Pont Valley
On Saturday 13 July we paid our second visit to the Durham Miner’s Gala. Again, the weather was good to us, at least in the morning. On route to the field we boogied to crazy 70s and 80s favourites performed by Brandon’s brass band.
As we passed in front of the County Hotel, Jeremy Corbin’s eyes were drawn to our banner. He got his phone out and took a photograph. We wondered how much he’d heard about our campaign. Maybe he thought our banner was a bit different from the traditional banners, or maybe our MP, Laura Pidcock has had a little word with him about supporting us?
Last year at the 134th Gala, the Big Meeting, we made history by marching with the first ever banner to explicitly oppose opencast coal extraction and by inference, coal. A sensitive issue as despite the age-old abuse suffered by north eastern communities at the hands of powerful coal corporations, there are still those who hold fast to the belief that coal created and sustained their families and communities.
This year, the 135th Gala, our participation reflected the fact that we are still here, still opposing the destructive exploitation of communities and the natural environment for coal. We rallied at the same point on North Road, but this time a contingent from Extinction Rebellion congregated near us. In the months since their inception we’ve had some reservations about ‘XR’ but they’ve added their support to our campaign and it’s strange to think that this time last year they were just an idea not a reality. Lots more has happened in the 12 months since the last Gala. We launched a judicial review against the Secretary of State’s flawed decision to allow Banks to opencast the Pont Valley, we made new allies with Dewley folk campaigning against Banks near Throckley in Newcastle and our collaboration with Save Druridge has strengthened.
We met old friends and new along the way and picked up an invitation to exhibit our banner at the British Textile Biennial and an invitation to take part in the Easington Miners’ Picnic!
I believe we will return for the 136th Durham. Let’s hope we aren’t still waiting to hear from the Secretary of State and let’s hope Banks expansion plans in Durham, Newcastle, Northumberland are curtailed – that would be a real cause for celebration!
By June Davison from Campaign to Protect Pont Valley
James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government, has failed to deliver with a decision regarding the future of two places in the North East of England affected by Banks Groups opencast coal extractions.
A decision was promised to the community trying to stop an opencast at Druridge Bay (Highthorn) on the Northumbrian coastline, and to people living next to an opencast in the Pont Valley in County Durham on the 13th June. The Druridge Bay application was called in during 2016 and the Secretary of State was first asked to intervene in the Pont Valley in February 2018.
A couple of days prior to the decision date the lawyers working for Save Druridge, June Davison (living in the Pont Valley) and Friends of the Earth were told that the decision was delayed and that there would be an update at the end of June. This did not happen, on the 4th July the Secretary of State’s Ministry in a letter said, “I am afraid we are not yet in a position to provide a timetable for decision… we will provide a further update in due course.
Now the communities at Drurdige Bay and in the Pont Valley as well as those objecting to a new application to extract coal at Dewley Hill on the outskirts of Newcastle are still awaiting a decision. For those living next to Banks’ operational mine in the Pont Valley this means that any hope of a meaningful change to the current permission is slipping away, because the opencast started over a year ago, conversely at Druridge the longer delay is likely to be frustrating Banks Group as we come closer to the 2025 coal phase-out.
Banks Group has submitted an application for a new opencast at Dewley Hill and intends to extent operations in the Pont Valley.
The Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government has not said when it will actually make the decision, but the continued delay suggests that it cares little for the communities at the front-lines of resource extraction and climate change.
This is not the first delay, the Ministry said its original decision not to revoke planning in the Pont Valley was “flawed” and promised to remake the decision with reasons by the 25th February. It later said it would make the decision alongside the remaking of the decision regarding Druridge Bay following a High court appeal by Banks Group which ordered the Secretary of State to reconsider his predecessors decision to prevent opencasing at Druridge.
Alexandra Korolyova a director of anti-nuclear and anti-coal group Ecodefense is being threatened with prison time, relating to failing to pay fines after Russian courts deemed the organisation a “Foreign Agent”.
Ecodefense, founded in 1989, is one of the oldest environmental NGOs in Russia. It currently operates in Moscow, Kaliningrad, and Kuzbass. Coal Action Network has worked with Ecodefense to highlight the horrendous conditions surrounding the Kuzbass coal mines which supplied 46% of the coal imported to the UK’s power stations in 2017. Fern and Coal Action Network released a report, Slow Death in Siberia, in 2017 describing first hand the impacts of coal mining on the indigenous Shor community.
A foreign agent is Moscow’s terms for non-profit groups, or NGOs, that receive funding from overseas and engage in political activities. The group says it cannot pay the £27,000 fines as all their funds have been raised for specific projects.
“Ecodefense is committed to nonviolence, does not participate in politics, and does not accept funds from the state or major business organizations. Ecodefense campaigns against the harmful impact of coal production, construction of nuclear power plants, and import into Russia of nuclear waste. It advocates the protection of urban green spaces and environmental education,” said Ecodefense in a statement on their website.
The Times (paywalled) has reported that Alexandra Korolyova has left Russia and is seeking asylum in Germany as a result of the persecution. Germany also imports significant quantities of Russian coal.
16 NGOs from around the world stand by our friends in Russia. Stop the criminalisation of human rights and environment defenders!
Ecodefense is one of the oldest environmental groups in Russia, founded in 1989 in Kaliningrad. It works in various regions of Russia including Moscow, Kaliningrad and Siberia (Kuzbass) and has already successfully stopped nuclear power plants and coal mines.
In 2014 the Russian government officially labelled Ecodefense as a “foreign agent”, because the organisation convinced a number of investors from Europe not to invest in a nuclear plant near Kaliningrad, which stopped the plant’s construction in mid-2013.
The Russian Ministry of Justice initiated 28 legal (administrative) cases against Ecodefense for non-compliance with the law, leading to fines totaling Euro 30,000, which the organization did not pay until now. Ecodefense turned to the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) in the collective case “Ecodefense and Others vs Russia” together with 61 Russian civil society groups that were affected by the law on foreign agents.
In May 2019, the situation worsened even further: Russian authorities launched 5 criminal cases against Ecodefense. These charges could mean a jail-sentence of up to two years for the organisation’s director, Alexandra Koroleva.
Though Ecodefense is not the first NGO to refuse to pay its fines, it is the first case so far in which the authorities have launched a criminal case against a civil society organization. This is a dangerous precedent, which could lead to further crackdowns on the civil society of Russia!
Declaring Ecodefense a foreign agent as well as the criminal charges against the organization are clearly driven by political motives.
In solidarity with Ecodefense
we demand all charges against Alexandra Koroleva and her organization to be dropped immediately
we will actively spread information on the political repression of Ecodefense, to make sure their case stays in the public realm
we are collecting donations for Ecodefense to pay their – wrongfully imposed – fines, as this could help to ease their current situation.
Signed by:
Arbeitsgruppe Schweiz-Kolumbien, Schweiz
Banktrack
Bürgerinitiative Lüchow-Dannenberg, Germany
Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe
Coal Action Network, UK
Colombia Solidarity Denmark
Dachverband der Kritischen Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre, Germany
Last week people from three different campaigns against opencast coal joined together to hand in a 113,000+ signature petition to James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government, urging him to revoke permission for Druridge Bay and stop work at ‘Bradley’ in the Pont Valley.
His decision on both mines is expected this week.
June Davison from Campaign to Protect Pont Valley, brought a Judicial Review of James Brokenshire’s decision last year to let the Bradley mine go ahead.
She says: ‘We’ve been fighting for 40 years and it’s a disgrace that we’ve been waiting this long for a decision. The decision should be in line with his own government’s policy and it should recognise all the evidence we have now about climate catastrophe
Every day that we wait there is a Komatsu P3000 digging up 25 tonnes of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel with every scoop…. That’s being put into stockpiles or being sold abroad.’
Outside James Brokenshire’s office we were joined by a brass band and a clogg dancer from the Pont Valley! Thanks to Campaign to Protect Pont valley, Save Druridge and Defend Dewley Hill for taking part in this colourful show of local resistance. Thank you to 38 degrees for the video!
At Coal Action Network, we have always campaigned on the basis that coal mining for coal-fired power should end, now. Because of the impact on the climate, on human health, on human rights, on our environment and wildlife.
What we often come up against is the argument that whilst coal should end, we don’t have a replacement for it yet and since it will still be used for a little while, it still needs to be dug up.
We have always said that we need to push for alternatives to fossil fuels and to reduce our demand for them so that the day that coal mining is not needed can arrive sooner.
Today, the argument for a national need for coal for electricity is over.
The good news: Let’s celebrate! The UK is in the best position possible to leave the world’s most polluting fossil fuel in the ground. This should be persuasive in the Secretary of State’s decision on Highthorn and Druridge which is now due June 13th, and we hope it will also affect Newcastle City Council’s decision on Dewley Hill. Along with Friends of the Earth and Save Druridge, we submitted evidence to the Secretary of State on this matter, and we hope that it will weigh heavily in favour of opening no new mines, and closing existing ones.
If the government can start listening to communities who have been calling for an end to opencast for decades, then this is good news. To achieve that we have to keep up the pressure to hold them accountable!
The bad news: The UK is needlessly continuing to contribute to communities suffering the impacts of opencast coal mining in the UK and Internationally, and contributing to more fossil fuels being burned than needed.
Here are some of the reactions we heard from communities and campaigners fighting the sources of the UK’s over-stocked coal…
Front-line communities react
June Davison, a local resident and campaigner near to the Bradley (Pont Valley, County Durham) site, which has been in operation since June 2018, said; “Every tonne of thermal coal that has come out of the ground at Bradley over the past 10 months has been surplus to the UK’s requirements. Banks Group’s justification for destroying our valley and seeking to open new mines is based on the lie that they are providing for UK household energy needs. The Secretary of State must stop this and ensure that other communities do not suffer needlessly the way we have.”
Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Russian environmental group Ecodefense, said,”The news that the UK power stations continue to buy Russian coal despite having too much already adds insult to injury to those on the front line of opencast coal destruction. Coal mining in Russia means environmental destruction and human rights violations. The more coal tainted with blood the UK buys from Russia, the more damage caused.”
Samuel Arragoces, displaced from the community of Tobaco by the Colombian mine Cerrejon, said, ‘We are worried about what is happening in the UK, where the government promised to phase out coal. Coal mining here in La Guajira, Colombia, is causing more suffering every day. Our question for the UK government is, will it keep letting power stations buy this coal now that it will not be needed? Because here the coal mine is seeking to expand, polluting more water sources, stealing more land. Our community leaders are threatened with death for trying to stop this. So will the UK carry on being a marketplace for this coal?’
See our Ditch Coal report for more on the impacts of Coal Mining in Colombia
Climate Impacts
All coal that is dug up will eventually be burned. If the UK is digging up more coal than it needs, then we’d expect to see it get exported to other countries.
We found that exports of coal from the UK are at an eight year high, increasing 28% in 2018, and sourced from the UK’s opencast coal mines[2]. Celtic Energy (operating 3 mines in Wales) and Hargreaves (operating Fieldhouse in Durham which opened spring 2018) are both on the most recent coal exporters database, so coal from here is being sold abroad.[3]
Dr Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at the The Australia Institute, was categorical that the UK was contributing more to climate change by continuing to mine coal: “Economics 101 tells us that when you increase the supply of something you push down the price. By mining more coal in the UK than is burned in the UK there is no doubt that the UK coal industry is putting downward pressure on world coal prices and, in turn, leading to an increase in consumption of coal globally. This will undermine international commitments to keep global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The only reason the UK should approve new coal mines, when it already has more coal than it can burn, is if it hopes to increase coal consumption in other countries.”
What Next?
Local communities are mobilising against all the plans in what could be a crucial moment for the future of coal mining.
Sign the petition to call on James Brokenshire to make the right decision to stop two coal mines this June
Follow…
Campaign to Protect Pont Valley : https://protectpontvalley.noblogs.org/
Save Druridge : http://www.savedruridge.co.uk/
Defend Dewley Hill : https://defenddewleyhill.org.uk/
[1] Energy Trends March 2019. Chart 2.4 (Table 2.1) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/791293/Energy_Trends_March_2019.pdf (stockpiles) & Annex G: Major Power Producers by Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/updated-energy-and-emissions-projections-2018 (projected coal use)
[2] BEIS Coal production and foreign trade March 2019 Import and Exports of Solid Fuels Table 2
[3] Panjiva exporters database accessed April 2018.
Press Release
[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.coalaction.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Coal_-UK-has-imported-and-dug-up-more-than-twice-the-coal-power-stations-will-ever-need.pdf” title=”Coal_ UK has imported and dug up more than twice the coal power stations will ever need”]
Submission to Secretary of State re. Bradley and Highthorn April 2018
