In February and March we’ll be touring the UK to mobilise against Scottish Coal’s plans for a 4 million tonne opencast coal mine at Glentaggart East. This mine is one more of many that have ravaged the Douglas Valley over the years, and with South Lanarkshire Council once again approving a Scottish Coal mine despite huge objection to it the stage is set for a showdown in South Lanarkshire. See here for information about dates, and to organise a tour date where you are please get in touch!

We’re running out of metaphors – bending over backwards, like puppets on a string, lapdogs – it seems that everything coal-related that happens in the Douglas Valley involves South Lanarkshire Council going out of their way to accommodate Scottish Coal. It doesn’t matter whether its ignoring planning guidance, refusing to enforce conditions, or just plain re-writing the script, there is nothing the Council won’t do to let Scottish Coal get their way. You would be forgiven for asking what the point in a planning process is at all. This time, Scottish Coal are extending working hours at Mainshill so that it becomes a 24 hour site.

Continue reading ‘South Lanarkshire Council bend over backwards as Mainshill goes 24 hours’

As was reported last month, South Lanarkshire Council approved Scottish Coal’s application to mine 4 million tonnes of coal from Glentaggart East in the Douglas Valley. Once again, the Council has excelled itself in using the planning system to give the developer, in this case Scottish Coal, what it wants. Despite hundreds of objections to it (and not a single letter of support) and too many contradictions to planning policy to list from the international to national and local levels, the application was rushed through the planning process once again. This isn’t exactly a shocking revelation, but the desperation is telling.

Continue reading ‘Glentaggart East: what’s next?’

On 22nd December, two Bristol Rising Tide activists appeared at Lanark Sheriff’s Court to be sentenced following an action to stop work at the Mainshill open cast mine back in March 2011. The two were fined £400 each for aggravated trespass by Sheriff Stewart.

They were part of a group who entered Scottish Coal’s Mainshill mine in South Lanarkshire to disrupt coaling operations. The two Bristol activists managed to reach and scale a huge 260 tonne ‘prime mover’ in the bottom of the pit, one of the two biggest machines on the site. Other activists there to support them were brutally attacked by Scottish Coal employees and Trustcare Security. The action lasted over 4 hours before a specialist police team from Glasgow removed the people occupying the excavator, which had been in the process of loading coal from the seam on to dump trucks.

The action in March was part of the on-going campaign by Coal Action Scotland to resist the expansion of the open cast coal mining in the Douglas Valley in South Lanarkshire. In 2009/2010 there was a 7-month occupation of the site by the Mainshill Solidariy Camp; over 70 people were evicted from the site, with 45 being forcibly removed and arrested.

Coal Action Scotland are now focusing their efforts on resisting the proposed new mine at Glentaggart East. This would involve the extraction of 4 million tonnes of coal, twice the size of Mainshill. Bristol Rising Tide will be hosting an info tour by Coal Action Scotland in the New Year – watch out for further details on Indymedia.

Bristol Rising Tide will next be meeting on Monday January 9th at 7.00 p.m. at Kebele, Robertson Road, Easton

www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol

It’s been glaringly obvious for some time that South Lanarkshire Council will do anything to help Scottish Coal mine the Douglas Valley – but the way that they sneaked this latest application through defies belief. Every means possible was used to ensure that no one except the Council knew that the decision on the 4 million tonne Glentaggart East application was going in front of the planning committee. Following a recommendation for approval signed off by Colin McDowell on 5th December, South Lanarkshire Council Planning Committee voted on Tuesday to accept the application.

Continue reading ‘Battle lines drawn: council deceive community and approve Glentaggart East application’

Download Coal Action Scotland’s ecological submission against Glentaggart East and the destruction of peat bogs here. Scottish Coal call it “degraded” and planned to dig it up, store it in a mound for a few years and put it back miraculously better than it was. But now (to appease the easily-swayed consultees)  they propose to mine around Glentaggart East’s two main areas of blanket bog – protected by “impermeable bunds” – in the hope that adjacent mining operations won’t damage it, and also in the hope that we believe they’re not just going to mine it later anyway! Stopping an opencast mine at Glentaggart East isn’t just about leaving the coal in the ground, its also about stopping the destruction of a major carbon sink and the emission of over 2 million tonnes of CO2 just from peat removal.

Continue reading ‘For peat’s sake – save the Glentaggart East bog!’

After Chief Exec Don Nicolson recently quit Scottish Coal, it’s time for Colin Ortlepp, Planning Director for Scottish Coal, to follow suit. Scottish Coal is a house of cards and its about time it came tumbling down, with its directors taking responsibility for it. Colin Ortlepp is the face of Scottish Coal’s planning for new mines, and has consistently lied to communities across Scotland, and even to Council employees. In South Lanarkshire, he’s lied about extensions to mines, how long they would operate for and haulage routes that would be used. He even lied outright to Roger Dick, Minerals Enforcement Officer for South Lanarkshire Council, about sending HGVs laden with coal through Douglas and Glespin, something he said wouldn’t happen. He’s the driving force behind the “Forward Strategy” in the Douglas Valley, pushing through more mines such as Glentaggart East and extensions such as Broken Cross North East. Come on Colin, you’re next to go!

In what the Scotsman has described as a “fresh blow” for the UK’s largest open cast mining company, Chief Executive Don Nicolson walked out on Scottish Coal yesterday, leaving the company “a rudderless ship”. We can only speculate how many more blows the company can take – Don makes 5 senior directors to have left in 13 months, and with two failed flotation attempts of the company, a 90% profits slump, and now a new report from the Environment Agency saying that Scottish Coal is one of the highest producers of CO2 in the industry, producing twice as much per tonne as UK Coal – surely the fatal blow that slays the beast will come soon?

Continue reading ‘Good riddance! Scottish Coal chief exec quits’

CONCH NEWS ALERT : North Ayrshire Council Say NO
At a meeting on Wednesday, lasting less than 90 minutes, North Ayrshire Councillors voted unanimously to object to Ayrshire Power’s plans for a dirty coal-station at Hunterston. Citing concerns over health, environment and climate change the councillors were also critical of major gaps in information provided by Ayrshire Power and their failure to have credible plans to capture 100% of carbon emissions from the outset. The council also highlighted the need for an independent health impact assessment; emphasised that a public inquiry was needed given the high level of objections and also disputed that the plans were compatible with the Scottish Governments National Planning Framework.

Continue reading ‘North Ayrshire Council Say no to Hunterston Coal-Fired Power Station’

Scottish Coal have announced that they are no longer perusing a new 420,000 tonne open cast coal mine at Auldton Heights, just south of Lesmahagow in South Lanarkshire. The confirmation came in a letter to Douglas Community Council, where Planning Consultant Stephen Beebe stated the following: “I can confirm on behalf of Scottish Coal, that the company is not proceeding with a planning application for the Auldon Heights surface mining proposal as set out in the 2010 Forward Strategy for South Lanarkshire and forming part of the public consultation exercise we carried out last autumn. The reason for this is based on commercial viability considerations and technical issues.”

Continue reading ‘Small victory against open cast in Scotland: Scottish Coal withdraw Auldton Heights plans’