Northumberland residents face yet another coal fight

Aug 27 2009 by Neil McKay, The Journal

RESIDENTS of a North East village who successfully opposed opencast mining applications 30 years ago now face yet another fight.

UK Coal is to submit a planning application to mine two million tonnes of coal at Whittonstall, Northumberland, between the villages of Ebchester and Stocksfield.

In 1978 and again in 1984 plans submitted by the National Coal Board for a large opencast mine near the village were rejected following widespread protests. Now UK Coal have advised Northumberland County Council and the parish councils around Whittonstall of its intent to submit a planning application for surface coal mining works for the site, to be called Hoodsclose.

A spokesman said: “A planning application is likely to be submitted by around the end of the year. If the scheme is subsequently approved, the project would create at least 50 jobs for around seven years.”

Coal reserves in the area were proved in the 1970s by a drilling programme carried out by the then National Coal Board (NCB). A subsequent application by the NCB to extract around 3.5 million tonnes from the Whittonstall site was refused in 1978.

The NCB was renamed British Coal in 1986 and privatised in 1995. UK Coal, Britain’s biggest coal producer, acquired the site on privatisation as part of the three English coalfield packages for which it paid the government £815m.