AN OFFICIAL planners’ inspection of a proposed village opencast site this morning has been postponed.

The site visit of Northumberland County Council’s Area West Planning Committee to Halton Lea Gate in West Tynedale will be rescheduled before the committee’s mid-May meeting.

The Council said today’s planned site visit clashed with another event which meant only a limited number of councillors would have been able to attend.

HM Project Developments has submitted a revised application to extract 140,000 tonnes of coal from farmland in the west of the village.