CPRE Leicestershire

In September 2008 a request was lodged with Leicestershire County Council for a Scoping Opinion on behalf of Coal UK.  The proposal in question was for what is euphemistically termed a ‘surface mining and restoration scheme’. That’s opencast coal mining to you and me.  The details of the request can be seen here.

The Leicestershire Minerals Development Framework Background Paper, published in June 2008, made this comment about the proposal site, known as Minorca: ‘…Minorca…was refused planning permission in July 1996. Coal UK has not provided any information to suggest that the original reasons for refusal at Minorca can be overcome.’

A .pdf version of the brochure published by Coal UK in support of the Minorca proposal can be seen here.

The main driving force for this proposal are the coal-fired power stations, presumably Ratcliffe-on-Soar in the main.  Currently, Daw Mill and more distant mines provide the fuel for this power station. Ironically, Daw Mill is owned by Coal UK.  As long as we increase our demand for electricity the greater the negative environmental impacts will be.  Another irony is that these notes are being compiled during the evening of ‘Earth Hour’, where a billion people in cities around the world are being asked to switch off non-essential electrical appliances and lights for just one hour to raise climate-change and sustainability awareness. 

Always lurking behind proposals such as this is the expression ‘overriding economic need’.  For example, in 2004 Leicestershire CPRE objected, as did many others, to the  Coal UK proposal for opencast mining at Long Moor, near Ravenstone, a greenfield site. (The Government reneged  on a 1997 pre-election promise to protect Greenfield sites from opencast mining. After the Long Moor test-case the Government changed the guidelines, stating that opencast operations could go ahead, provided that environmental damage could be ‘kept to an acceptable minimum’. Without a legal definition or test of what this means the Government has effectively reversed its pre-election promise) For the Long Moor application we pointed out that the proposal did not meet two of the relevant tests demanded by Minerals Planning document MPG3. The two tests of relevance in proposals for this part of Leicestershire are:

‘i. Is the proposal environmentally acceptable, or can it be made so by planning conditions or obligations?

ii. If not, does it provide local or community benefits which clearly outweigh the likely impacts to justify the grant of planning permission?’

In the Long Moor case the County Council rightly refused the application, though this was subsequently overturned in 2006 by the Secretary of State (Ruth Kelly) following a Planning Inspector’s Report.  This had the effect of putting local authorities off contesting opencast applications. North West Leicestershire MP David Taylor spoke magnificently in Parliament about the environmental impacts of opencast operations in north-west Leicestershire.  The Hansard Report can be read here.

Coal UK have stated that the 70 hectare Long Moor site ‘will be fully restored in just over 3.5 years to include a mixture of agricultural land, mixed deciduous woodland, wet Carr woodland, species rich hay meadow, reed bed and an area of open water.’ Operations to recover 725,000 tonnes of coal from the Long Moor site commenced in late 2007. 

If the Minorca application is allowed to go ahead, what can be expected? The following series of pictures were taken in 1999 at the opencast site which lay between Moira, Donisthorpe and Willesley:

An excavator ripping up and moving the overburden. The gentle and tranquil nature of the rural scene in the background makes a stark contrast.

Again, the assault on what was a pleasant bucolic landscape is evident.

The scale of operations is enormous.

Previously mined and restored land, with active opencast operations in the distance.

It is worth examining the entire restoration of this area on Google Earth which shows the landscape as it was in 2006.  It is worth noting that this area lies within the National Forest. Is what is left behind as good or better than what was there before the opencast mining took place?  This particular site was opened up by RJB mining and was subsequently taken over by Coal UK.

Has open season for opencast coal mining been declared on north-west Leicestershire and south Derbyshire? If cumulative impacts are to be properly addressed will these include each application on a piecemeal basis or collectively on this area of the East Midlands at a strategic level?

It seems that north of the Border citizens have more protection from the negative impacts of opencast mining.  On our wind-turbine webpage  we have pointed out that the Scottish Guidelines advise a two kilometre separation between settlements and wind turbine projects. Similarly, the Scottish Executive’s Planning Policy 16 demands a 500 metre protection zone.  These planning rules are far more rigorous than those south of the Border!

A similar rule has been requested twice in the House of Commons through the process of Written Questions, once in October 2007 and again on February 9^th 2009. The latest Written Answer coming from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government stated ‘The Government have no plans to introduce a planning policy recommending uniform buffer zones around opencast mining sites in England. It considers that the interests of the occupants of neighbouring properties, and the environment, are better served by the present practice of considering the specific impacts of individual mining schemes in the light of all the local relevant circumstances, as part of the preparation of an environmental impact assessment for an application for planning permission.’

It will be a demanding task to use MPG3 and the Leicestershire Minerals and Waste Plan documents to counter any opencast operation in the County, given the odds stacked up against us.  The Leicestershire Minerals and Waste Plan Further Consultation originally stated that ‘A re-consultation on the Site Allocations documents is expected in the Spring of 2009.' This has now been changed to late 2009 because the County Council is awaiting the outcomes of LDF Core Strategy consultations.

So, having had it’s hand bitten by the Government once (Long Moor) is Leicestershire County Council likely to approve Coal UK’s eventual application for opencast mining at the Minorca site?  There were two other notable reversals by Government of local authority decisions to oppose opencast mining – one at Cramlington in Northumberland and another nearer to home in Smalley, Derbyshire. This mp3 broadcast of the events at Smalley is well worth listening to, especially the closing words.

In a statement CPRE stated ‘As well as the effects on landscapes, communities and wildlife, an increase in opencasting means that carbon emissions from coal will continue to contribute to climate change. Investment in new unabated coal contradicts government targets for an 80% cut in emissions enshrined in the Climate Change Act, and disturbingly recent decisions suggest that in practice, there is now a presumption in favour of coal.’

In the meantime, we await both the re-consultation on site allocations for the County Minerals Plan (http://www.leics.gov.uk/mlp.pdf) and the actual application from Coal UK for the Minorca site.