Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Other Controversies Affecting UK coal plc In addition to it losing £129 Million

Steve Leary | 26.04.2010 10:16

This article draws attention to some of the controversies surround UK Coal's activities in addition to the financial losses published today.

Press Release 54 from the Minorca Opencast Protest Group

OTHER CONTROVERSIES AFFECT UK COAL plc IN ADDITION TO IT LOOSING £129 MILLION POUNDS

UK Coal plc announcement today that it lost an estimated £129.1million in 2009 is not the only legacy the company has left from last year. (1) Other issues, in addition to these losses affect this company. A group opposing UK Coal’s plan to opencast a green field rural site in Leicestershire, the Minorca Opencast Protest Group recently published a report into the activities of this company entitled “UK Coal plc: An Alternative Report”. Amongst other things this report details the losses this company has accrued on its coal operations over the period 2000 - 2008 of over £110m, reveals its increasing reliance on opencast rather than deep mined coal and criticises it’s marketing of its land bank. In addition the report highlights where the actions of this company have resulted in the company coming into conflict with local communities and local councils in Bolton over the restoration plans for UK Coal’s Cutacre site, in Rossington, Doncaster where plans for a large Eco-Town were successfully resisted and the Lounge site near Ashby De La Zouch in Leicestershire, which UK Coal has failed to restore to agricultural land despite an enforcement order.(2) Since the publication of this report in March 2010 there have been further developments.

In March planned opencast sites for which UK Coal had gained planning permission, Blair House in Scotland and Huntington Lane in Telford were occupied by protestors – and the occupation of the Huntington Lane site still continues.(3) Leicestershire County Council are now threatening to take UK Coal plc to court over the non restoration of the Lounge site.3 Private Eye in its story “Restoration Comedy” reported on this.(5)

Since the publication of the Private Eye story a further example of UK Coal’s ability to upset local people has come to light in Rainworth Nottinghamshire, where plans to site an incinerator on the site of the UK Coal owned Rufford Colliery has led to a Public Inquiry on the planning application (6)

This is all in addition to our own objections to having the possibility of an opencast mine on a site over one mile long and half a mile wide across the road from where people live.

Steve Leary, Spokesperson for the Minorca Opencast Protest Group said

“Anyone with an interest in this company should take note not just of these financial losses. This is a company which demonstrates a capacity to upset local people in places where they operate, especially when it comes to seeking planning permission for opencast mine sites and developing ex deep mining and surface mined sites. There are other sites that could have been researched such as Stobswood and Hoodsclose in Nortumberland , Bradley in Co Durham, Lodge House and Smalley in Derbyshire where opencast mining is taking place in spite of local opposition or is threatened. These results are likely to make UK Coal even more determined to pursue its plans for new opencast sites and to develop its property despite local protests as it seeks to rescue itself from its dire financial position. We can therefore expect to see even more controversy surround this company in the future.

In our case in Leicestershire it also raises questions about whether this company would have the money to restore the site if it gained planning permission to opencast on the Minorca site. We will be raising this issue with Leicestershire County Council, who are due to decide on this application on July 15th"

Notes
1)See:  http://miranda.hemscott.com/static/cms/2/4/2/6/binary/6708928375/12155758.pdf
2See:  http://mopg.co.uk/MOPG-Research-Reports.php

3See:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/03/448210.html

4See:  http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/politics/Mining-company-face-court-restoring-Leicestershire-land/article-1936958-detail/article.html#StartComments

5Private Eye, Issue 1260 16-29 April 2010 p 30.
6)See:  http://www.chad.co.uk/sherwood/Public-inquiry-into-incinerator-at.6223402.jp

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS PRESS RELEASE CONTACT:
STEVE LEARY, SPOKESPERSON, MOPG
4 GREENFIELD ROAD, MEASHAM, SWADLINCOTE, DERBYSHIRE DE12 7LB, tel 05601 767981, email  steve46leary@googlemail.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MOPG PLEASE GO TO:
 http://www.mopg.co.uk or
 http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/minorca-protest.html

Steve Leary
- e-mail: steve46leary@googlemail.com
- Homepage: http://mopg.co.uk

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Well done! pile on the pressure! — Green man
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech