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.

We are helping to fight two legal battles, one against the government for allowing the opencast to go ahead and the other against Banks itself for destroying the breeding grounds of a protected species.

Update: This campaign stopped Banks Group from expanding the Bradley Opencast coal mine in the Pont Valley. Thank you to everyone who participated

Decisions on coal mines still pending despite reduced coal demand & power station closures