A local campaign group is fighting UK Coal's plans for an opencast mine near Measham in North West Leicestershire. The Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) oppose the company's plans for a mile long mine and the extraction of 1.25m tonnes of coal over 4 1/2 years.
UK Coal are already failing to meet requirements to restore a site in nearby Ashby de la Zouch to agricultural land and MOPG fear that this will happen again.
It is thought that coal mined at Minorca would be used to fuel Ratcliffe on Soar power station in Nottinghamshire. The mined coal would fuel the power station for only 65 days.
Newswire: UK Coal to gain unwelcome publicity at a Leicestershire County Council meeting | 400 have now signed the Minorca Petition | Pensioners to deliver message about Minorca | Leicestershire County Council: Please make a Decision!!
Previous features: Nottingham is not stupid | Protests continue at Shipley open cast site | Coal On Hold - Derbyshire Coal Mine Site Occupied | New Old Coal for Notts
Links: Minorca Opencast Protest Group | Campaign resources | Notts Against New Coal
No Open Cast Coal Mining !
UK Coal is proposing to reopen the Minorca Pit site, between Measham and Swepstone as an opencast mine. The site will be over one mile long and half a mile wide. On three of its four sides, the boundaries will be Swepstone Road, Gallows Lane and Bosworth Road respectively. The fourth side of the boundary is a public footpath between Bosworth Road and Swepstone Road approximately 700m west of Swepstone. They intend to work on the site for a total of 4.5 years, extracting 1.25m tonnes of coal and 250,000 tonnes of clay, 12 hours a day (Monday to Friday 7am -7pm) plus 6 hours a day on Saturdays also from 7am. This will generate, they say, an average of 12 HGV movements an hour.