|
Thankyou for visiting the Minorca Opencast Protest Group web site. We hope you found this informative.
Please would you kindly sign our guest book and leave your comments.
If you would like further information, or would like to pledge support, send us an email via the Contact Us section.
Sign the Guestbook
|
Friday Sep/03/2010 21:30:14 BST
Thank you for visiting my site. Here you can leave your comments. |
|
 Total Records:50
Viewed Per Page:20 |
1 | 2 | 3 Next>> |
|
|
 |
| Name |
Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
50 Arthur Brown
Location: Amber Valley
|
 Saturday Aug/28/2010 06:56:42 BST   |
|
|
|
 |
Come, come Rod/Bob/John “Lazarus” Darwin/Redleader (or whoever you are this month), please avoid over-egging the pudding in defending an industry in which an objective observer might detect you have something of a personal interest (when not fixing your canoe).
For someone who isn’t bothered about the potential of an opencast mine at Minorca, you spend much effort in observing and promoting the supposedly splendid way the industry has operated in your locality, even to the degree of subscribing to some of the more esoteric house magazines. What jolly and life-affirming reading they must make to all those making a living from the wider community’s misery.
However, it is a tad disingenuous to pass-off THREE examples of perceived good opencast (Surface Mine to you) outcomes as FIVE shining examples of the same i.e. Hicks Lodge and Extension (one site, not two), Shellbrook and Wood Farm (again one site, not two), and Long Moor.
And it’s a tad more disingenuous to make these comparisons when it is noted that Shellbrook and Wood Farm was a third of the size of the Minorca proposal, and removed only 14% of the materials proposed at the latter. Then take Long Moor; half the size and half the tonnage. And then there’s Hicks Lodge, a site yielding large quantities of appallingly low quality coal but over a period of 14 years, not 4.5. Not one of the THREE a fair comparator for the Minorca proposal, wouldn’t you say?
Come and take a look at Lodge House for a reasonable comparison instead. Oh, and now the now proposed extension we were assured wouldn’t happen. This site contributes nothing to the locality except misery and mess.
I have yet to hear one convincing reason why Minorca won’t present the same debacle, or worse, considering that UK Coal Mining is now so financially crippled that its own auditors seem to think it’s about to disappear into one of its own holes. |
 |
|
|
49 Steve Leary
steve46leary@googlemail.com
Location: Measham
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 16:39:50 BST |
|
|
|
|
Rod, are you deliberately missing the point? On this site any one can comment pro or anti the submission. The MACE site has no such facility. Why should anyone think that MACE is anything other than a vehicle through which to only gather positive comments about the need to restore the canal and therefore have the mine? Again if you have influence open up the MACE site and stop trying to side track away from this issue.
It makes MACE look undemocratic and unable to engage in a genuine debate. |
|
|
|
48 Arthur Brown
Location: Amber Valley
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 14:20:45 BST |
|
|
|
|
I cannot comment on the other sites, but the detail of the Minorca the application has more in common with, say, Lodge House (significant negative impact) than it does with Long Moor or Hicks Lodge.
However, liaison committee minutes are an unreliable source of reference, as these bodies are usually taken over by opencast sympathisers eager to direct the community funds to their preferred projects and cllrs. from cash-strapped local authorities; objective members often leave in frustration as dialogue is subsumed by haggling over a few quid. That's how it is around here, and that's how it has always been. I doubt that a Minorca liaison committee will end up any different, particularly as we already see one minority interest group already bought-off.
Conditions are not enforceable at the time most breaches occur; MPA's do not have the resources, and the opencast companies are left to self-police sites, often 24/7 365 days a year apart from the odd inspection (yes, a site's impact is not limited to operational hours). Anyone can see the flaws in that concept.
Checking/enforcing conditions retrospectively is too late for community or environment. This assumes that the conditions were appropriate in the first place as they are developed prior to work starting.
If, for example, a noise threshold has been miscalculated (strange how they always fit the guidance perfectly at the planning stage), and the noise causes significant disturbance, neither the company or the MPA will do anything about it, and this impact can go on for years. |
|
|
|
47 Rod
redleader@orangehome.co.uk
Location: Heather
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 13:46:51 BST |
|
|
|
|
AB, at last something we both agree on not all Surface Mines are alike.
Neither are the teams that work them or the local authorities that enforce the 60+ planning conditions that apply to them.
If you think the comments on the MACE Web Site are selective, I challenge you to go through the Liaison Committee Minutes relating to Shellbrook, Woodfarm, Hicks Lodge,the Hicks Lodge Extension, and Long Moor and put any adverse comments on this guestbook together with a reference to the appropriate liaison meeting.
Copies of the Minutes of Liaison Committee Meetings are freely available from Leicestershire County Council. |
|
|
|
46 Steve Leary
steve46leary@googlemail.com
Location: Measham
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 13:38:27 BST |
|
|
|
|
Rod,
At least on this site we have a free and open discussion which is more than can be said for the MACE site. if you have any influence ask them to open it up!! |
|
|
|
45 Arthur Brown
Location: Amber Valley
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 09:13:07 BST |
|
|
|
|
Hardly think the MACE website is likely to be an objective source of information. More likely "selective", I'd have thought...
Minorca is simply not Long Moor, there is little comparison between the two. Just like Long Moor is not Lodge House, Stobswood, Smotherfly, Cutacre, Carrington Farm, Kirk, Godkin, Ryefield or Arkwright. No awards here, just misery. Balance of probability? Misery for Measham. |
|
|
|
44 Rod
redleader@orangehome.co.uk
Location: Heather
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 08:31:12 BST |
|
|
|
|
| JC, Take a look at the Liaison Committee Minutes on the MACE web site, its there in black and white for all to see. |
|
|
|
43 J C
Location: Heather
|
| Friday Aug/27/2010 01:18:23 BST |
|
|
|
|
Rod, dont be ridiculous. I was very annoyed at the Longmore open cast, the hardship and stress it caused. Not all Heather residents share your view.
MOPG keep on fighting your corner. |
|
|
|
42 Arthur Brown
Location: Amber Valley
|
| Thursday Aug/26/2010 18:10:36 BST |
|
|
|
|
| Long Moor is not Minorca, and the seriously negative experience at the operational Lodge House site is far from what is being claimed for Long Moor. No two sites are the same in terms of impact or outcome; if this was the case there would be no reason for individual Environmental Impact Assessments (for what they're worth). |
|
|
|
41 Rod
redleader@orangehome.co.uk
Location: Heather
|
| Thursday Aug/26/2010 17:29:25 BST |
|
|
|
|
I would like to confirm that the residents of Heather had no problems with UK Coals Long Moor Surface Mine Undertaking.
Even Virge Richichi the founder of FOIL and a member of the Liaison Committee was most impressed. |
|
|
|
40 Terry Lidster
T.Lidster@btinternet.com
Location: Snarestone
|
| Tuesday Aug/24/2010 13:26:00 BST |
|
|
|
|
This is an outrageous application which makes nonsense of the National Forest initiative.
The application is unsafe and the supporting documents are unscientific and misleading.
The people of North West Leicestershire should know as well as anyone that the applicant (UK Coal)cannot be trusted.
Best of luck to MOPG. |
|
|
|
39 Rom and Emma
romain_chambard@yahoo.fr
Location: Measham
|
| Friday Aug/20/2010 18:25:21 BST |
|
|
|
|
| We fully support MOPG. Opencast is a sore and doesn't have its place in the National Forest!! |
|
|
|
38 John Carpenter
jcarpent@tiscali.co.uk
Location: Ulgham, Northumberland
|
| Wednesday Aug/18/2010 22:28:03 BST |
|
|
|
|
I wish MOPG all the best in their efforts to get the planning application for the Minorca site refused.
Here, in Ulgham (pronounced Uffham), a village just north of Morpeth in Northumberland, we know a thing or two about opencast mining and UK Coal. Within 5 miles of Ulgham there are currently 2 working sites: at Steadsburn (2 miles) and Potland Burn (2 miles); 3 being restored: Stobswood (600 yards), West Chevington (2½ miles), Maidens Hall (3 miles); one with a planning application under consideration: Butterwell Disposal Point (1 mile); and one at the pre-application stage: Ferneybeds (1 mile). They are all UK Coal sites, apart from Ferneybeds (Banks Mining). THESE ARE ALL GREENFIELD SITES.
The nearest site, Stobswood, was started in 1990 and due to be restored by 2005. With extensions and procrastination the restoration is still not complete. We have been subjected to mounds obscuring the landscape, noise, dust and vibration for all this time – and before that, the Butterwell site (1978-1994. ¾ miles) was as bad if not worse, as it was upwind from us. Ulgham residents say enough is enough!
So keep up the pressure. |
|
|
|
37 Kevin Hough
kevat3@gmail.com
Location: Church Gresley
|
| Tuesday Aug/17/2010 17:42:54 BST |
|
|
|
|
| Good luck to you all in your continuing fight against this horrible eysore. You only have to look at the mess created at Booththorpe(I know, a tip as opposed to an opencast, but a huge, ugly scar on the landscape)to know what it will mean for your area. As I say, good luck. |
|
|
|
36 MARK BENISTON
mark.beniston@yahoo.co.uk
Location: Measham
|
| Tuesday Aug/17/2010 17:15:17 BST |
|
|
|
|
country file was a great platform for MOPG !! great to see the message is getting out to people via the news/tv i am doing things which can help towards the cause ie writing to LCC and uk coal and sending protest letters provided by MOPG too
we must not give up the fight!!  |
|
|
|
35 Arthur Brown
Location: Amber Valley
|
| Monday Aug/16/2010 06:58:05 BST |
|
|
|
|
In the recent issue of the Burton News, what exactly is Mr. Bricknell’s point with and his “house price NIMBY issue”, accusations? Even if property values are ONE of the reasons motivating objections to the Minorca opencast application, is he really saying that people shouldn’t have a right to defend the value of their biggest financial asset, something they’ve probably worked for all their lives?
Speaking from experience of living close to one of UK Coal’s opencast operations (but not as close as Minorca would be to local residents), perhaps his opinion will change when the mine is on his doorstep, and his quality of life has similarly been ruined along with that of residents for whom the canal is of little/no interest.
In my area, just the threat of opencast mining killed property sales at realistic market prices, and its continuing impact, now worsened by the threat of site extensions, has trapped people who want to move away. Where he sees planning gain, others rightly see planning blight. His remarks are crass and selfish.
MACE should be very wary about getting into bed with a company that has a clear pedigree on backtracking on its promises. I of course understand why this cash-strapped group is receptive to the oily words of UK Coal, but it is likely to end up sadder, wiser, and further back with its project than it is already.
Even when UK Coal /RJB Mining was “in the money”, once on site it did whatever it could to maximise profit by trying to avoid the very operational conditions and restoration obligations entered into in order to gain planning permissions. What on earth does MACE think the company will deliver now it is to all intents and purposes bust?
The likely outcome is that UK Coal will shunt some muck about, and then say “there you are, obligation delivered”. MACE will look on in astonishment, and wonder where the promised canal restoration has gone. UK Coal will refuse to do anything else claiming disagreement between the parties, the wrangling will go on for years, the site will be an eyesore, and MACE will become frustrated, embarrassed, and probably dissolve.
This of course assumes that the UK Coal mining division itself is not dissolved due to its terminal financial malaise, whereby the new successor company will not take on the canal restoration obligation. As has been seen at Lounge and many other UK Coal sites, opencast or otherwise, legal S106 agreements mean nothing to this crew.
Finally, even if MACE is foolish/desperate enough to trust UK Coal, there remains a significant moral question in whether a minority interest, i.e. the canal restoration, should prove key in the decision over the opencast application, which if approved will have a negative effect on the WHOLE community? This is particularly poignant noting the canal restoration is, in time, achievable without an opencast mine, the blight that will bring, and serious long-term divisions within the wider community.
Perhaps MACE should contact their equally desperate counterparts re: the Cromford Canal restoration, and ask how far in reality it has ACTUALLY progressed with UK Coal over its own restoration, after YEARS of weasel words.
Talk is cheap, and Trojan horses many at UK Coal headquarters and MACE should try not to be a mouthpiece for tenuous promises. |
|
|
|
34 Joe Henshaw
jghenshaw@btinternet.com
Location: Mapperley Village
|
| Monday Aug/16/2010 06:53:17 BST |
|
|
|
|
With respect to the recent countryfile expose, it was telling that UK Coal itself refused to appear, instead putting up the Coalpro mouthpiece Brewer to do his party turn about a site (Lodge House) that he clearly knows very little.
The very excavations on camera had actually seen the hedgerows grubbed-up, and mature/veteran trees felled in both authorised and unauthorised fashion. The site is also highly visible from many points, and I notice he didn't mention anything about the extension plan now before Derbyshire County Council, submitted against earlier UK Coal assurances.
Why John Craven appeared impressed with the restored site shown (Hick's Lodge?), I do not know, as to me apart from a few plastic tubes around the saplings, it looked like any other "restoration", i.e. not much different to the mess at Lounge, and in terms of biodiversity, probably inferior.
It was also poor that Brewer was allowed to get away with not mentioning the fact that the vast majority of coal is imported from diverse and secure sources, and this serves the base-load of the UK's coal generation, not the inferior product that UK Coal hawk around at below-market prices. The way it came across was that all the UK's coal has to come from indiginous opencast mines. The whole case for coal came down to scaremongering, ironically what MOPG is accused of over Minorca.
The fact remains that opencast coal in the UK would be surplus to need if there was more emphasis on energy conservation and efficiency, and far more jobs could be provided than a handful of migrant machine operators. |
|
|
|
33 Gemma Allen
Location: Measham
|
| Sunday Aug/15/2010 21:43:46 BST |
|
|
|
|
| As a member of MOPG and therefore on the email list, it was with disbelief i read this morning that a new group has been formed to 'back the opencast mine scheme'. Are people really supporting this group with the thinking that UK Coal will actually come up with the proposed amount to contribute to the Ashby Canal? MOPG's Steve Leary has completed extensive research into UK Coal and the likelyhood of there being such a significant sum available to contribute is questionable to say the least. I suggest anyone contemplating joining the 'for' group does some serious homework on UK Coal before signing their name on the dotted line. |
|
|
|
32 Tricia Whitehouse
patriciawhitehouse@mac.com
Location: Measham
|
| Saturday Aug/14/2010 18:16:37 BST |
|
|
|
|
Keep up the good effort, I attended the meeting, although i would have liked to see more supporters, the people who spoke made good points.
I do not live next door to the proposed site and may not be to affected by the noise. My big worry is for the close proximity to two primary schools, our young children being affected by extra traffic and air pollution. How can folk be willing to put the little ones well-being at risk?
When i moved here 11yrs ago the canal was definitely going to be here within 2 years, my local friends all laughed at this and said we will see, we are still waiting, I cannot understand why anybody would think UK coal would sort it out with one donation that would not cover the costs!!!! |
|
|
|
31 Steve leary
steve46leary@googlemail.com
Location: Measham
|
| Saturday Aug/14/2010 17:20:27 BST |
|
|
|
|
After the meeting of Measham Parish Council on Thursday 12/8/10 where for the second time they rejected UK coal's application one of our members Howard Peach wrote me this letter:
"Hello Steve
It really was an eye opener to attend the recent Council meeting. I was staggered to hear a certain member of the Council supporting the opencast in the belief of gaining funding for the canal.
I have lived in Measham for 60 years and have many happy childhood memories of walking along the canal with my Grandfather. No-one more than myself would be more pleased to see the canal back in the village; but if this individual thinks UK Coal will assist this he is living in the proverbial 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' ! It will not happen.
How any one in their right mind can support this application is beyond me. To blight an area of countryside, cause untold pollution and create hundreds of heavy goods vehicle movements each day on narrow country lanes just beggars belief !!
Thanks for all your hard work in opposing the application.
Regards, Howard Peach
PS Please feel free to use my comments as you see fit.  |
|
|
|
|
|
Guestbook
