Our view
A presumption in favour of opencast?
Ten years after environmental considerations were enshrined in official minerals policy, CPRE has written to the Government asking that they commit to leaving England’s untapped coal reserves in the ground until proven Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is working at our coal fired power stations.
While the cabinet have signed the 10:10 pledge to reduce their emissions, the Government have failed another test of their environmental credentials by approving the proposal for a new opencast mine near Telford, Shropshire. The mine will allow almost a million extra tonnes of coal to be burned - pumping more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere before any CCS infrastructure is in place.
In 1999, after decades of CPRE campaigning, paragraph 8 of the Government’s Minerals Planning Guidance 3 stated that ‘the Government believes there should normally be a presumption against (coal extraction) development, subject to tests on environmental acceptability’. While a welcome commitment in itself, this was watered down from CPRE’s initial demands that opencast developments should bring environmental and community benefits, and not just be ‘acceptable’.
This change in Government policy did have the desired effect as UK opencast coal production fell for a number of years, but ther now appears, increasingly, to be a presumption in favour of extraction, with fewer applications rejected locally and rejections that are made subsequently overturned by national government. We are concerned that this approach now means that councils are increasingly likely to approve initial applications (often against public opinion and environmental evidence) rather than incur the potentially enormous expense of inquiries and appeals.
The majority of local communities and local councils affected are overwhelmingly against new opencast mines. Local inquiries find that noise, pollution and disruption harm the health and recreation of residents, damage urban regeneration and discourage investment.
Potland Burn in Northumberland is a case where despite being in a designated area of 'opencast restraint', the county council approved the application because Hazel Blears' decision at Shotton near Cramlington had set a clear precedent. At Smalley in Derbyshire, the County Council abandoned its High Court challenge to the Government's decision after a similar appeal from Leicestershire CC was turned down.
The latest news on opencast coal mining
CPRE denounces the decision of the Secretary of State for Communities, John Denham to allow a massive new opencast coal mine as undermining the Government’s much trumpeted commitment to a low-carbon future. Huntington Lane opencast coal mine in Shropshire will increase carbon emissions, damage the local community and wreck part of an Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty
