ATH force decision

Christmas has come and gone and finally NANC have found out what is happening.  THe developers have forced Derbyshire County Council to take the application back to the planning committee and make a decision.  It is all very rushed so a reasonable decision is not to be expected.  It was only last week that we found out that the decision is to be made next week on the 26th January.  We still dont know the time and we also know that the planners have made a new report on the basis of a revised transport route through Notts but we haven’t seen the report and time is getting short.  Is this how democracy is run in this country?  Leave everything till the last possible minute so that interested parties don’t get a chance to have their input?  NANC will be represented at the hearing – again.  We don’t know if the people from Pinxton will be there.

We did find out a useful piece of information and that is ATH have deep pockets and short arms.  They are only paying 10p/tonne into the community fund whereas other despoilers of the land are paying up to 42p/tonne.  So not only are Pinxton being put upon with the transport but they are being short changed as well.

Derby postpone their decision

Well, we never expected this result.  Following a vigorous opposition to the application by some of the residents of Pinxton on the grounds of the traffic through the village, a motion was moved seconded and voted on by the councillors on the planning committee that they defer a decision on the application until after consultation with Notts CC about the possibility of the lorries going through Kirkby in Ashfield in Nottinghamshire and back to the M1 that way.  It looked like no one knew what to do next and all NANC can say is that the battle is not over yet.  So what happens next?  Well it appears that ATH can ask that the application be decided on as it is thus forcing Derby to make a decision, or they could go away and look at new routes for the lorries and then resubmit the application to both Notts and Derby and go through the whole process again.  But NANC have some advice for them: GIVE UP AND GO AWAY.  LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND AND KEEP THE LORRIES OFF THE STREETS OF PINXTON

Write to the Derbyshire Councillors on the planning committee

When NANC attended the planning meeting in Nottingham one Councillor said he had not had any letters about this issue.  Well lets change that at Derbyshire.  Lets write to the Councillors and tell them we don’t want new coal in Derbyshire.  Derby is under fire from planning applications to extract new coal by means of open cast mining.  There are at least 5 potential open cast mines in the pipeline in Derby including one that is cunningly disguised as cleaning up of polluted land.  So Derby know what the score is.  And they have voted to oppose them before so lets hope they continue to vote to oppose them.  So here is a list of the Councillors who will be on the planning committee:

Trevor Southerd (Lab) chair
Nigel Allwood (Lib Dem)
Beth Atkins (Lib Dem)
David Chapman (Lab)
Gail Newman (Lab)
Robert Parkinson (Cons)
Peter Riggott (Lab)
George Wharmby (Cons)
Barbara Wilson (Lab)
Paul Smith (Lab)

Write to them and ask them to vote NO.  Remember by the time this goes to committee we will have a Climate Change Bill committing us to an 80% cut in emissions by 2050 so we need to start now if we are going to achieve this target.

NANC love Patrick Mercer

Patrick Mercer is the MP for Newark and today he said to the Newark Advertiser “There will be no coal fired power station in my consituency while I live and breathe”.. What a man!  He understands the situation.  No new coal.  NANC not only oppose the getting of new coal from the ground by opening new open cast mines and new reclamation schemes such as that at Langton but we also oppose the Governments plans to build new coal fired power stations in this country.  And that could mean one in Nottinghamshire.  As we have said before, we do not need new coal fired power stations and we do not need new open cast coal mines.  We can easily meet our energy targets by energy efficiency, energy conservation and renewable energy.  Leicester Council have saved money and carbon by investing in a large scale insulation project.  Next week the Government will vote on the worlds first Climate Change Bill and most MP’s are saying they will vote for an 80% cut in emissions of CO2 by 2050.  If we want to meet this target (and new evidence from the Tyndall Centre says we have 18 months to get our act together) then we cannot have coal fired power generation as part of the mix.  it simply won’t work.  That is why we like Patrick Mercer.  He gets it.

Planning Meeting at Derby

Because this application crosses the county boundary the application will also be heard at Derby County Council in November.  we will be there again.  Just because one set of Councillors showed a remarkable lack of knowledge or concern about climate change and the role coal has to play in atmospheric CO2 doesn’t mean that the Derby Councillors think the same thing.  After all they refused the application to open cast mine at Shipley – even if it was overturned by Prezza when he was Deputy Prime Minister (good riddance to him too).  We will be joined by the Erewash and Amber Valley Environmental Network.  The date?  As far as we know it will be November 17th but things may change – they have once already.  We also hope that some people from Pinxton may want to come along.

NANC attend the planning committee hearing and get angry

NANC activists met the councillors and the chap from ATH development as they entered County Hall for the planning committee hearing

ironically in front of a statue of a pair of miners - the ones that go down deep mines not the ones that scrape the top off land

Well we went to the planning committee hearing and stood outside with our banners as some of the councillors and the chap from the development company walked past.  He definitely saw us.  A planning committee hearing is a strange thing.  You are allowed 3 minutes to put your case and you can be cross examined by councillors but you can’t ask questions of them or of the opposition.  NANC put the arguement that councillors should consider the wider impact of this development and consider the impact burning coal would have in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.  But all these guys were interested in were whether there would be lights at night – well, dur, it says so in the application; whether the coal could be transported by rail instead of by lorries – well, dur, the whole point of this exercise is to get coal and sell it and make a profit, not to ‘waste’ money on a rail track a couple of miles long; how much the community would get (10p per tonne of coal extracted = £45,000 for the locals – now divide up your blood money, folks) and what would it look like afterwards.  Again – read the proposal – grassland, wetland, scrub and trees – exactly as it is at the moment PLUS the contours won’t change so the hill will still be there.  So all those locals who thought they would get a nice park and the noisy motorbike riders would go away will be sadly mistaken.   The impression amongst some of the councillors was that the land would be returned to agricultural use – hello?  growing crops on a hill?  On soil that is at most 1ft thick?  I don’t think so!  NANC has got hold of a document that shows that when the colliery was closed in 1968 and until 1970 the spoil heap was seeded and the land could be cultivated by a local farmer who was a tennant of the then Coal Board.  Judging by the state of the land, that has never happened – well certainly not in recent years.  So plus ca change plus ca meme chose – the more things change the more they stay the same.

The chap from ATH amazed everyone when he came out with the line ‘the lights will go out’.  We were all speechless – metaphorically and literally as we were not allowed to comment on this outrageous comment.  The lights will NOT go out.  That is a tactic used by John Hutton (BERR RIP ha ha ha) and the coal industry to frighten us all into believing that coal is an integral part of our energy mix.  It is not.  It is an integral part of the past not the future.  At any one time there is at least one coal fired power station (not to mention nuclear power station but we wont go there as we are not Notts Against Nuclear) that is not functioning for one reason or another.  Do we notice?  No.  Now, some coal fired power stations are due to be closed soon because they do not meet European emission standards but IF – and this is a big IF – the Government actually got their collective finger out and invested in new renewables to meet the EU target of 20% renewables by 2020 then we wouldn’t even notice the lack of coal seeing as most of our renewables are aimed at making electricity – that would be 40% of our electricity from renewables which would more than compensate for the shutting down of those coal fired power stations.  But will that happen?  We do hope so but energy companies don’t like renewables.  Perhaps its because once you have recouped the cost of building and maintenance of a wind turbine you can’t really justify charging the same amount of money for wind or solar cos ITS FREE!  So you can’t justifiably make a profit.  And thats what it’s all about at the end of the day.  Money.  Make money while the planet burns.  Sorry chaps, money might insulate you for a while from climate change but not forever.   

Be at County Hall

NANC will be outside County Hall from 9.00am on Tuesday 30th September to greet the councillors as they go in to decide the fate of the spoil heap at Langton.  If you are reading this, then you obviously care about the climate so come and join us!

Despite the planner recommending that the application goes ahead (boo!!) we hope to convince the council that they should actually consider the wider implications of what they agree to.  The UK carbon emissions are actually going UP!!! Allowing this development to go ahead will only add to increasing emissions and make it even more difficult to reach the emission reduction targets (not to mention renewable targets) that this Labour Government has committed itself to.  Gordon Brown bangs on about the third world and stuff like that but it is the people in the third world who will suffer most and suffer first (they are already suffering) from the effects of climate change. 

If there are any councillors on the planning and licensing committee reading this – take note of 2 things:

1. you have the power to make a positive change and reject this application

2. if this goes ahead then it will not be the last.  West Notts could be ravaged by open cast mining and coal reclamation within a short time and it will be your fault

Planning recommendation is to dig!!!!

NANC has just seen the planners report which will be presented to the planning Committee on Tuesday 30th September at 10.00 (3rd item on the agenda) and it recommends that the development goes ahead subject to both Derby and Notts County Councils agreeing.  Conditions have been set but nowhere does it mention climate change.  the full recommendation can be read at

http://itsacr02a.nottscc.gov.uk/apps/pr/diary/memdiary.nsf/055df64be8ed5c48852565e2005c15eb/3FC5565D0A919A9C802572CD0030B021/$file/R04_coal%20recovery.pdf

We are not defeated yet!

This has happened before

NANC has used the Freedom of Information Act to find out that there has been a previous application to recover coal from the spoil heap at Langton.  It was made by British Coal on the 16th July 1991 and was rejected on the grounds of visual intrusion and the effect on the local population of the noise and dust and general disturbance.  In 1991 climate change was not such an important issue.  Now in 2008 climate change is the most important issue facing our planet.  All planning decisions have to take account of climate change and when you add to this the reasons why the development was turned down before then there is no obvious reason why this development should go ahead.